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Animal Farm
George Orwell
George Orwell: A Biographical Sketch
His Connection with the East
George Orwell's real name was Eric Arthur Blair. He was the second of three
children of his parents. Both sides of his family had been connected with the East.
His paternal grandfather was an Anglican priest in Australia and India; and his
maternal grandfather, who was French, was a teak merchant in Moulmein, Burma.
His father, Richard Blair, was a deputy agent in the Opium Department of the
Indian Civil Service, which supervised the legalized opium trade with China.
Orwell's family belonged to the English upper-middle class.
His Attitude to His Parents
Orwell was born in 1903 in Motihari (Bengal) situated on the bank of a lake in the
State of Bihar. He spent the first three or four years of his life in India before
he was sent to England in 1907 to begin his schooling. The years of childhood spent
in India, the heat, the colour, and the social atmosphere had deeply affected his
childish imagination. In England Orwell attended a primary school at Henley-on-
Thames. In an essay which Orwell wrote in 1947, he recorded that his early
childhood at home had not been altogether happy. In 1911, at the age of eight,
Orwell joined a preparatory school called St. Cyprian's. Orwell's memories of his
parents were not very pleasant. In the essay referred to above, for instance,
Orwell wrote:
One ought to love one's father, but I know very well that I merely disliked my
father, whom I had barely seen before I was eight and who appeared to me simply
as a gruff-voiced elderly gentleman forever saying: "Don’t.
Orwell's mother, who was eighteen years younger than her husband, was a
charming woman, a bit exotic and gypsy-looking. About her Orwell wrote: "I never
felt love for any mature person except my mother, and even her I did not trust."
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Miserable and Lonely at St. Cyprian's School
Orwell afterwards wrote that at the age of eight he was suddenly separated from
his family and "flung into a world of force and fraud and secrecy." He did not have
a happy life at St. Cyprian's school which was situated in Eastbourne. In his
reminiscences, he later emphasized what he regarded as the hellish aspect of this
school where he spent the crucial years from the age of eight to the age of
fourteen. He wrote later that he was miserable at school and lonely, and that he
"soon developed disagreeable mannerisms which made me unpopular throughout my
school-days." He stated that one of the school codes was "an almost neurotic dread
of poverty and, above all, the assumption that money and privilege are the things
that matter." In school Orwell felt guilty because he was not the son of rich
parents and because he did not have much money. Orwell's feeling about St.
Cyprian's school were so intense and painful that the essay, Such, Such Were the
Joys, in which he recorded these feelings could not be published during his life-
time, because the essay could have been regarded as defamatory and libellous and
could have provoked the school authorities to prosecute Orwell on the basis of
what he had written about that school. A school-fellow by the name of Cyril
Connolly, gave a different and more pleasant picture of St. Cyprian's school in one
of his books. When Connolly's book was published in 1938, Orwell said to him: "I
wonder how you can write about St. Cyprian's. It is all like an awful nightmare to
me." Recalling his experiences at St. Cyprian's, Orwell in his essay wrote: "Soon
after I arrived at St. Cyprian's I began wetting my bed." The result of this
shameful weakness was that he received two beatings which created in him
a sense of desolate loneliness and hopelessness, of being locked up not only in a

hostile world but in a world of good and evil where the rules were such that it was
actually not possible for me to keep them. I had a conviction of sin and folly and
weakness, such as I do not remember to have felt before. This acceptance of guilt
lay unnoticed in my memory for twenty or thirty years.
His Painful Memories of School Life
The bed-wetting was only the first of numerous episodes which made Orwell feel
guilty. He was poor; he was lazy; he was a failure; he was ungrateful and unhealthy;
he was weak, ugly, cowardly, and smelly. His teachers beat him and humiliated him
throughout the six years of his stay at St. Cyprian's. As a consequence he
developed the profound conviction that he was no good, that he was wasting his

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time, and that he was behaving foolishly and wickedly. Orwell's experiences at
school and the feelings of guilt and sinfulness which he developed there are vital to
the understanding of his character and the nature of the books which he
afterwards wrote. The most moving passages in the essay Such, Such Were the
Joys, come from Orwell's realization of his own disloyalty, untruthfulness, and
hypocrisy, and a major theme in that essay is his retrospective horror at the kind
of person he was. Of course, in his view, the entire responsibility for his being
what he was is attributed by him to the environment at the school, the atmosphere
in which the students were educated, and the treatment he received from the
school authorities. The themes of authority, guilt, cruelty, helplessness, isolation,
and misery are quite prominent in this essay. Orwell compares St. Cyprian's school
with that infamous school in Dickens's novel Nicholas Nickleby where lasting
agonies and disfigurements were inflicted upon children by the treatment of the
teachers. In short, Orwell depicts St. Cyprian's school as a reactionary and
barbaric Victorian institution.
At Eton
In spite of his depression of spirits and his feelings of misery at St. Cyprian's
school, Orwell was able to win a scholarship which enabled him to proceed to the
public school at Eton where he was the contemporary of Cyril Connolly (who had
been with him at St. Cyprian's also) and Steven Runciman (who was afterwards
knighted). One of Orwell's teachers at Eton was Aldous Huxley who taught English
and French there from 1917 to 1919. But Huxley's influence on Orwell was very
limited. Orwell studied very little at Eton, learnt very little, and got very low
marks. There was nothing very unusual about the young Orwell, no promise of
genius, nothing to suggest that in course of time he was to become one of the most
influential writers of the twentieth century. At Eton he soon developed a kind of
aloofness which left him on good terms with everyone without his being the close
friend of anybody. He was poor at games, but he edited a humorous magazine called
College Days and served in the Officer Training Corps. As these were the years of
World War I, Orwell's father joined the army as a subaltern at the age of sixty,
and from 1917 to 1919 looked after the mules in an army camp near Marsailles (in
France).

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His Rejection of the Aristocratic Values at Eton
Eton did not constitute a formative influence in Orwell's life. He spent five years
at this school but never felt enthusiastic about it. The aristocratic values which
reigned at the school were distasteful to him. He rejected the snobbery which was
the most prominent feature of the life of this school. After completing his
education at Eton, Orwell should have proceeded to a university (Cambridge or
Oxford), but he was not rich enough to meet the expenses of university education,
and he failed to win a scholarship which could have taken him there. His inability to
win a scholarship deepened his feeling that he was a failure in life. His father now
suggested that he should try to join the British police force in Burma. His father
was confident that he would get Orwell selected for the Burmese Police Service
because of the personal connections which his family had with Burma for over
three generations.
Selected For the Burmese Police Force
Orwell left Eton in December 1921 and got admitted to a tutorial establishment in
order to prepare for his competitive examination. Two of the teachers at Eton
gave him the required testimonials of good character which Orwell had to send
with his application for being allowed to appear in the examination. In the summer
of 1922, he was examined in several subjects. He got his highest marks in Latin and
his lowest in history and geography. He got the seventh position in a class of
twenty-nine, and he was one of the three men; selected for the Police Service in
the East. On the 1st September, 1922 he was certified as physically fit. He
selected Burma because his father had spent several years there. He could have
selected the Punjab or the U.P., and even Bengal; but he expressed a preference
for Burma.
Service as a Police Officer in Burma;
and His Resignation
Arriving in Rangoon in the same year (1922) Orwell took courses in Burmese,
Hindustani, Law, and Police Procedure. Then he served as a police officer in various
Burmese towns including Moulmein where he shot an elephant. He worked as
assistant to the District Superintendent of Police in the capital of Upper Burma,
where he was expected to run the office, supervise the stores of clothing and
ammunition, look after the training school for locally recruited constables, and so

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on. He had also to check the night patrols in the city, and he had to assume
general charge when the Superintendent was away. At his house he kept a large
number of birds and animals—geese, ducks, goats, etc. He thus maintained what
could be called an "animal farm". There were a number of servants at his house to
attend upon him. He allowed himself to be dressed and undressed by his Burmese
servants whom he sometimes kicked and beat. In August 1927 Orwell went on leave
to England, after five years of service in Burma. In spite of the strong tradition of
imperialist sentiment in his family, he disliked the job which he had undertaken to
do in Burma. He had developed a bitter hatred of imperialism, and he felt that he
could not go on with his public duties, which involved a lot of cruelty towards the
Burmese. Furthermore, the District Superintendent of Police under whom he had
been serving had not been treating him well. So he made up his mind to resign his
job in Burma. He submitted his resignation and, though his superiors were annoyed
because he gave no reason for leaving, they accepted the resignation.
Sick in a Paris Hospital
Orwell now bought a tramp's clothing in a pawn-shop and made the first of his
many expeditions among the poor and outcast of London. In the spring of 1928 he
went to France where he rented a shabby room in a working-class quarter of Paris,
and published his first article in a weekly magazine called Monde. In February 1929
Orwell fell ill with pneumonia and had to spend several weeks in a Paris hospital as a
charity patient. In one of his essays written afterwards, he thus records his
feelings:
When I entered the ward at the hospital, I was conscious of a strange feeling of
familiarity. What the scene reminded me of, of course, was the reeking, pain-filled
hospitals of the 19th century.
As a non-paying patient, Orwell had to endure the depressing conditions in the

hospital and the bad treatment which he received. His whole experience in the
hospital was disgusting.
His First Publication, 'Down and Out in Paris and London"; and the Use of a
Pseudonym
In the summer of 1929, Orwell wrote several short stories and two novels, none of
which could be published. The little money that he had in his possession having
been stolen, he felt compelled to pawn all his clothes. He then worked for ten

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weeks as a dish-washer (or a plongeur) in a luxurious but filthy hotel. His first
book, Down and Out in Paris and London is a record of his experiences among the
poor of the two capital cities. This book was rejected by the publishers Cape and
Faber, but was accepted by Gollancz. It was published in 1933 under the
pseudonym of George Orwell. (As has already been pointed out, his real name was
Eric Arthur Blair. He did not publish the book under his real name because he had
begun to hate his name and therefore felt it necessary to have a pseudonym. It
was by his pseudonym that he eventually became famous and by which he is now
known). Orwell left Paris at the end of 1929 and went back to London where he
gave lessons to a retarded boy in a town on the Suffolk coast. Subsequently, he
picked hops in Kent, and taught in small private schools in two different towns. In
the first school he thrashed a boy who was trying to blow up a frog with a bicycle
pump.
As a Contributor to "Adelphi", and a Part-Time
Job at a Bookshop
From 1930 to 1935, Orwell contributed book reviews to a magazine called Adelphi
which was being edited by Orwell's close friend, Sir Richard Rees. He earned an
income of three to four pounds a week from doing this work which he afterwards
described as an "exceptionally thankless, irritating, and exhausting job". Orwell's
journalistic output was enormous, and in about twenty years he produced more than
seven hundred articles, besides writing his books. In October 1934 he took up a
part-time job in a bookshop where he worked for a year and a half and later wrote
about this experience in his novel, Keep the Aspidistra Flying.
Visit to Wigan. Marriage
In January 1936, Orwell was commissioned by the Left Book Club to study the
economic and social conditions in the industrial region of northern England and to
write a book describing those conditions. He gave up his job at the bookshop and
went to the industrial county borough of Wigan in order to make a first-hand study
of the conditions of working-class life. He recorded his impressions of this life in
his book, The Road to Wigan Pier. In June 1936 Orwell married Eileen
O'Shaughnessy, a rather frail but attractive graduate student in psychology at the
University of London. She was three years younger than he. She was sophisticated,

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fastidious, highly intelligent and intellectual. She was tall and slender, with blue
eyes, and dark-brown, naturally wavy hair.
Participation in the Spanish Civil War
In December 1936 Orwell went to Spain to write about the Civil War which had
broken out in that country five months before. But, instead of getting busy
observing the conditions there and writing about them, he joined the militia known
as P.O.U.M. at the Lenin barracks in Barcelona in order to fight on the side of the
democratic forces against Fascism. His wife also went to Spain two months later to
work at the office of the I.L.P. (Independent Labour Party) in Barcelona. After a
week of cursory military training, Orwell was sent to the battle-front at Aragon in
north-east Spain. He suffered the boredom and hunger of static trench warfare in
an extremely cold climate until one day, on the 10th May, 1937, he was hit by a
bullet fired by a Fascist sniper and received a serious wound in his neck. After
recovering from his wound in the following month, he again offered to go to the
battle-front but P.O.U.M. was suddenly declared illegal, and Orwell and his wife,
now suspects in the eyes of the Communist police, somehow managed to cross the
French frontier into safety. All these events became the subject of Orwell's book,
Homage to Catalonia which contained a severe attack on Stalin's Communists.
In Quest of Health in French Morocco
In March 1938 Orwell fell ill with tuberculosis. This was a disease from which he
had already suffered as a child. He had been offered a job by the newspaper
Pioneer at Lucknow in India, but he could not accept the assignment on account of
this illness. With a gift of three hundred pounds from L.H. Myers, the novelist,
Orwell and his wife were able to spend the winter in Marrakech (in French
Morocco). It was there that he wrote his novel, Coming Up For Air. Unfortunately,
their stay in Marrakech did not improve the health of either Orwell or his wife,
and they were not much stronger on their return to England in the spring of 1939.
In June that year, Orwell's father died of cancer at the age of eighty-two.
As a Talks Producer for the B.B.C.
World War II broke out in September 1939. It was an event which Orwell had
been apprehending for a long time. He offered himself as a volunteer for the army,
but was rejected on medical grounds. In August, 1941 he took up a job as Talks
Producer for the Indian Section of the B.B.C. (British Broadcasting Corporation)

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and carried on war propaganda, for the cause of the Allies, addressed to the
people in Asia. Others who contributed talks to this programme included E.M.
Forster, T.S. Eliot, and Herbert Read. In November 1943, Orwell left the B.B.C.
and became the literary editor of The Tribune for which he also wrote a column
under the heading "As I Please". His subjects in this column, which he continued
for the next four years, covered a very wide range. The Tribune was a weekly
newspaper which was both progressive and humane, and which tried to combine a
radical socialist policy with a respect for freedom of speech and a civilized
attitude towards literature and the arts.
Financial Gain Through "Animal Farm"
In February 1944, Orwell completed Animal Farm, a satire on the Russian

revolution and its betrayal. He received a big shock when several publishers
refused to publish this book on the ground that it contained a severe condemnation
of Russian Communism. Russia was at that time an ally of the western democracies
against Hitler's Nazism, and no English publisher felt inclined to give offence to an
ally in the war against Hitler. Eventually this book was published by Seeker and
Warburg in August 1945, at a crucial moment in world history. In the previous four
months, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler had died; Churchill had been voted out of
office, Germany had surrendered to the Allies; and the first atomic bomb had
exploded over Hiroshima (in Japan). That month was also a turning-point in Orwell's
life, because half a million copies of Animal Farm were sold through the American
Book-of-the-Month Club and he became financially prosperous for the first time in
his life.
The Tragic Death of Orwell's Wife
However, Orwell's literary success was marred by a personal tragedy. He and his
wife, having been unable to have a child of their own, had adopted a one-month-old
baby in June 1944 and had named him Richard Horatio Blair. In February 1945,
Orwell had gone to France and then to Germany as a war correspondent for a
newspaper. While he was abroad, his wife, who had been in poor health throughout
the War, had to undergo an operation to stop the decline of red corpuscles in her
blood. She died when she was still on the operation table. Despite his wife's sudden
death, Orwell refused to give up his adopted son. He put the little boy under the
care of several house-keepers one after the other until his younger sister, Avril.
came to live with him in 1946.

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The Publication of "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
Second Marriage. Death
Orwell began writing Nineteen Eighty-Four in August 1946 and finished it in

November 1948. He was seriously ill for much of that time. He was now living on
the island of Jura in the Hebrides where there was neither a telephone nor
electricity in his house. Life on Jura was very hard, and Orwell had selected this
place for a stay in order to punish himself. Perhaps there was a masochistic strain
in him. His wife's death and his own distaste for social life created in him an
irrational desire to live an arduous life on this rainy island, far from medical
attention. He was confined to bed for varying periods during this time. In the
summer of 1947, he and the boy Richard were shipwrecked in a dangerous whirlpool
off Jura and were lucky to be rescued by a fisherman. Orwell was admitted to a
tuberculosis sanatorium near Glasgow in December 1947 and remained there until
June 1948. He again became seriously ill in November-December 1948. In 1949 he
was admitted to a hospital in London for the last year of his life. His letters during
this period revealed the gravity of his disease. In October 1949 he married again,
his wife this time being a woman called Sonia Brownell who was working as a
secretary on Cyril Connolly's magazine, "Horizon". Nineteen Eighty-Four was
published in June 1949, but Orwell did not live long enough to enjoy the fruits of
the success of this masterpiece. He felt somewhat better in the beginning of
January 1950 and made plans to enter a sanatorium in Switzerland. But he died of
tuberculosis on the 21st January 1950, and was buried in the churchyard of All
Saints in Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire.
George Orwell: His Principal Works

Autobiographical Works
1. Down and Out in Paris and London (1933): This book is a record of Orwell's
personal experiences in the two cities of Paris and London where he made contact
with the lowest of the low in French and English society—with social outcasts, with
tramps, criminals, and prostitutes.

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2. The Road to Wigan Pier (1937): a record of his experiences during his visit to
the industrial town of Wigan and other places in northern England where he found
the conditions to be very depressing.
3. Homage to Catalonia (1938) : a record of his experiences during the Spanish Civil
War in which he had himself fought for a brief period.
Novels
1. Burmese Days (1934): a fictional account of his experiences in Burma where he

had spent a few years as a police officer. The hero of the novel is a man called
Flory, a melancholy young man, who is a timber-merchant in Burma.
2. A Clergyman's Daughter (1935): the story of Dorothy, the spinster daughter of

a clergyman. She loses her memory after a sexual assault, leaves her home and,
after some depressing experiences, returns home to resume her duties as her
father's housekeeper.
3. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936): the story of Gordon Comstock ("twenty-nine
and moth-eaten already"), who comes from a shabby-genteel family and, like
Orwell, had suffered from going to school with boys much richer than himself.
This, like Burmese Days, is a directly autobiographical novel.
4. Coming Up For Air (1939) : the story of George Bowling, a middle-aged suburban
insurance agent. The themes of this novel are Orwell's intense dislike of London as
a nightmarish metropolis, his pervasive fear of the impending war, and his longing
for the imagined safety of his childhood.
5. Animal Farm (1945): a beast fable with allegorical significance. The book is a
satire on the Communist regime in Russia under Stalin. It depicts Stalin's betrayal
of the ideals of the Russian Revolution of October 1917.
6. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949): a grim satire on totalitarianism. It is a nightmarish

vision of the future as Orwell saw it at the time of writing this book. Its hero,
Winston Smith, undergoes some horrendous experiences.
Essays, Letters, Articles Contributed to Magazines, etc.
Orwell wrote numerous essays and letters, and a large number of articles which he
contributed to various magazines and journals. All these have been published under

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the title of The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell in four
volumes:
Volume I. An Age Like This: covering the period 1920-1940.
Volume II. My Country Right or Left: covering the period 1940-1943.
Volume III. As I Please: covering the period 1943-1945.
Volume IV. In Front of Your Nose: covering the period 1945 till Orwell's death.
Note. A memoir written by Orwell under the heading "Such, Such Were the Joys",
containing his bitter memories of his school life, was published posthumously.
Written in 1947, this memoir recalls his miserable experiences at St. Cyprian's
school where he had spent six years from the age of eleven to seventeen.
George Orwell, The Essayist
During 1940, Orwell wrote three major essays. These were: Charles Dickens; Boys'
Weeklies; and Inside the Whale. These essays summarize the ideas of Orwell's
previous work.
(1) "CHARLES DICKENS"
Art and Propaganda
In the first-named essay, Orwell criticizes Dickens both positively and negatively
by asserting that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. But
Orwell's conclusion in this essay is that Dickens is sincere, that Dickens hates
tyranny, and that Dicknes's moral approach is just as revolutionary as a social
approach.
This essay is quite interesting in tone because all the criticism of limitation or
restriction is only implied and not explicit or blunt. The essay appears to be far
more positive than it in fact is. Furthermore, this essay is best known for Orwell's
statement that all art is propaganda but that all propaganda is not art. This
statement naturally raises the question: What it is which, when added to or taken
away from propaganda, makes it art as well. Orwell speaks of the aesthetic

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preference as "either something inexplicable or it is so corrupted by non-aesthetic

motives as to make one wonder whether the whole of literary criticism is not a
huge network of humbug." The idea is a development from Orwell's earlier
comments on the purity and potential meaninglessness of art. But from his
experiences in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell found that he could not avoid
propaganda and that he could not exclude it from his art. Yet at this stage he is
curiously ambivalent about it. In other words, he cannot come to any definite
conclusion about the relation of art to propaganda. In the essay on Dickens, he
expresses the view that the element which made Dickens's propaganda into art as
well was the fact that he cared, that he was sincere. In other words, it is
Dickens's sincerity which lends to his propaganda the character of art. And yet
Orwell's view is not fully convincing. Dickens cares morally but not socially. While
he is against authority, he seeks no way of changing it. He is sincere and true to his
private isolated standards, but he is not honest because he takes no account of
social contingency. Ultimately one cannot escape social responsibility. Art and
propaganda lie together where the private and the public become inter-connected
and fused. Unless a writer is consciously extending this connection into political
realities, there is always a danger of propaganda without art.
(2) "BOYS' WEEKLIES"
Orwell's Views About Comic Magazines
This essay contains a detailed account of the rhetoric employed by comic

magazines, and examines their structure and audience-relationship. Orwell here
considers the techniques which are essential to this kind of writing, because these
techniques provide the basis for all Orwell's future criticism of fantasy-literature
and lay the foundation for his analysis of totalitarian propaganda. The structural
details of the weeklies include tautology, repetition of meaningless expressions,
slang and nicknames, and a recurrence of "stylized cries of pain". Characterization
in these weeklies is simple and clear with a strong moral separation between the
good and the bad. There is no character with whom some or other reader does not
identify himself, except the out-and-out comics. Orwell subtly links this form of
literature with totalitarian strategies. Orwell also refers to the popular demand
for these magazines which provide what the public wants to read. While on the one
hand such demand appears to justify the existence of such literature, on the other
it comes wrapped up in a subtle propaganda. Orwell here notes the submissive

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nature of the audience-response which is required, and the corresponding need to

hide the grounds on which the argument is based. Just as the danger of war
propaganda lies in not realizing that it is war propaganda, so here the propaganda is
all the better "because it is done indirectly". The boys' weeklies, superman comics,
and women's magazines offer no political development and no advance in social
outlook; they continually present fantasies of being rich and powerful. Boys'
Weeklies is the least ambivalent of the three major essays of 1940. It discusses
the techniques of escape clearly, presenting such literature as the basis for
propaganda which is not art. The writing of fantasy-literature is most effective if
it is without opposition from both the private individual and society. As Orwell was
later to note, a similarly isolated public propaganda is always in danger of becoming
totalitarian.
(3) "INSIDE THE WHALE"
Miller's Attitude of Acceptance, a Sign of Decadence
This essay serves as a gathering-point for all Orwell's ideas of the period. It
chiefly discusses the effect of totalitarianism on literature. It begins with a
repetition of an early comparison between James Joyce and Henry Miller, and then
goes on to compare Miller to Walt Whitman. Both Miller and Whitman accepted the
world, but Whitman accepted the world when it was politically easier to do so,
despite glaring injustices such as the condition of the Negroes. But to accept the
world in an age of concentration camps, rubber truncheons, Hitler, Stalin, bombs,
etc. is stupid. To accept civilization as it was in Miller's time, and as it continues to
be, means accepting decay. Such an attitude of passive acceptance means
decadence. From a discussion of Miller, the essay develops into a brief examination
of the literary movements of the 1920's and 1930's. Orwell then tries to explain
the response to totalitarianism and its effect on literature. It would seem, from
the following lines in this essay, that Orwell is advocating passive literature; but
actually he is firmly and resolutely opposed to passivity in literature and therefore
disapproves of Miller:
For the fact is that being inside a whale is a very comfortable, cosy, homelike
thought. The historical Jonah, if he can be so called, was glad enough to escape;
but in imagination, day-dream, countless people have envied him. It is, of course,
quite obvious why. The whale's belly is simply a womb big enough for an adult.
There you are, in the dark, cushioned space that exactly fits you, with yards of

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blubber between you and reality, able to keep up an attitude of the completest
indifference, no matter what happens.
In Orwell's opinion, Miller found himself inside the whale and felt quite contented
there. Miller had performed the essential Jonah act of allowing himself to be
swallowed by the whale and had remained passive, accepting the world as he found
it. Orwell himself does not, of course, approve of this attitude of acceptance. The
essay ends with the flat statement that Miller was not a great author and that,
although he was imaginative enough, he was completely negative, unconstructive,
amoral, and a passive accepter of evil. Both the outspoken propagandist and the
passive accepter are tools of totalitarianism, according to Orwell. Without art, the
propagandists are essentially passive, obeying a party line and not having their own
ideas. Passive accepters, while being openly passive in the face of totalitarianism,
in effect provide an audience which makes its propaganda possible, because they
never argue back.
An Ambiguity in This Essay
In spite of what we have said about Orwell's view, there is a certain ambiguity in
this essay. The ambiguity lies not in Orwell's analysis of the situation but in his
failure to spell out the alternatives. He hints at the novelist who is not frightened
and who presents orthodox opinion, but he does not elaborate the dangers of this
alternative reaction to totalitarianism. He demonstrates the need for a public and
private inter-action to arrive at a personal politics, and he illustrates the
negativity of party politics alone; but he does not go on to present his own stance
towards the two aspects.
(4) "THE LION AND THE UNICORN"
The Need For the Preservation of English Culture, and the Creation of a
Homogeneous Society
In 1941 Orwell wrote a long essay called The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and
the English Genius. The essay was written when German bomber-planes were
raiding London every night. (These continuous raids came to be known as the
"blitz"). Although the essay is on the whole a cheerful one and contains Orwell's
firm belief in the future of England and of socialism, it begins with a sense of total
upheaval and moral void. The ethic of power, says Orwell, has emerged
unchallenged, and the individual conscience has been absorbed by the State. In the

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face of the apparent victory the totalitarian mind, Orwell proposes that
civilization, and particularly the British people, can still survive and eventually
prevail. Basically, Orwell demands two pre-requisites for the transformation which
can turn society away from its present direction. These pre-requisites are: the
preservation of English culture, and the creation of a homogeneous society. This
essay is, then, a re-statement of Orwell's beliefs which had evolved during the
previous decade. It stands as a culmination of his political “search". The political
faith which he states in this essay remained substantially the same until his death.
He did have doubts during the next nine years or so about the possible realization
of socialism, but he never questioned the validity of his ideas. Toward the end of
his life, however, he saw that socialism would be more difficult to achieve and
would take longer to be achieved than he had visualized in 1941.
The Uniqueness of English Culture, According to Orwell
The chief merit of this essay lies in the fact that it is a gathering and
arrangement of ideas which were found in Orwell's previous work but which had
never before appeared so clearly and definitively. For example, the English culture,
which forms the basic defence against the modern State in Orwell's ideology but
which was rather a vague concept in his previous writings, is here described in
detail. The characteristics of the English culture, according to Orwell, are: an
innate resistance to regimentation and uniformity; a horror of power-worship; a
hatred of militarism; and a deeply ingrained moral sense. The uniqueness of this
culture, in Orwell's view, lay in its combination of an insistence on the individual's
worth, balanced by a respect for law. The chief problem facing Orwell and
socialism was how to convert this culture into a workable political programme. How
were the people to be brought to power? The people had remained submerged in
society because of the rigid class system; they had been dominated by a corrupt
ruling class and betrayed by the intelligentsia. Orwell traces the failure of the
educated people to their separation from the English common culture. Fascinated
by Russian communism, the British intellectuals had been directing their energies
chiefly against their country during the period between the two World Wars.
Instead of acting as a positive and constructive force, the British intellectuals had
been merely critical and negative. In this connection Orwell says:

16
If the English people suffered for several years a real weakening of morale, so
that the Fascist nations judged that they were decadent and that it was safe to
plunge into war, the intellectual sabotage from the Left was partly responsible.
But, despite the difficulties of transferring power to the common people and the
threat of Fascism, Orwell believed that English socialism was not a very distant
prospect. All depended on the English people winning the war; and victory,
conversely, depended on the creation of socialism. During the period of the blitz,
Orwell did observe a disappearance of certain class-privileges. This development he
attributed both to the unifying effect of the war-effort and to the gradual
growth of the middle-class during the preceding twenty years, a process which had
been quickened by the war itself. In all this he thought he was witnessing the
beginnings of a classless society.
A Paradox in Orwell's Thinking
There is certainly a paradox in Orwell's political thinking here. On the one hand,
his radicalism sprang from an intense conservative impulse, while, on the other
hand, his socialism was progressive and revolutionary. This paradox is implied
particularly in an important passage with which The Lion and the Unicorn concludes:
By revolution we become more ourselves, not less. There is no question of stopping

short, striking a compromise, salvaging democracy, standing still. Nothing ever
stands still. We must add to our heritage or lose it, we must grow greater or grow
less, we must go forward or backward. I believe in England, and I believe that we
shall go forward.
Orwell felt sure that, unless the structure of society was altered, the vital
resources in the English culture would not blossom or bear fruit. Ultimately,
Orwell's patriotism, which emerges fully in this essay, developed out of a desire to
establish something stable, a basis for political morality, or, we might say, a
substitute for religion. But his desire was essentially a preservative instinct, or a
demand that the present and the future be built upon the past which had, in his
eyes, proved to be permanent and vital. He thought revolution to be a necessity,
but he also believed that revolution, divorced completely from traditional wisdom
and the national culture, would result in Stalinism, in an "Animal Farm". The check
on, and the guidance of, power must be derived from an established cultural
heritage. That is why he rejected international socialism and turned his efforts to

17
the creation of an English socialism. The former always deteriorated into a tyranny
because it lacked the preserves of a unified culture.
His Admission of an Error of Judgment
The confidence and optimism which are found in this essay did not last. As the war
progressed, it became evident to Orwell that he had misinterpreted the signs of
1940 and 1941. He later admitted his mistake, with his usual frankness and
honesty.
Some Important Essays Written Daring 1946-48
Orwell's discussion of literature and politics reaches its climax in five major
essays written by him during 1946-48. These essays are:
(1) Why I Write
(2) The Prevention of Literature
(3) Politics and the English Language
(4) Politics Versus Literature
(5) Writers and Leviathan
The whole discussion of literary purpose in these essays is made from an

understanding that literature is inevitably bound up with a political context in
contemporary England. By politics, Orwell means two things. The first is the desire
to push the world in a certain direction in order to alter other people's idea of the
kind of society which they should aim at. The second meaning of politics is the
mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia found in party politics. In
party politics there is a pressure toward conformity that culminates in the
opposites of totalitarianism and anarchy which are, on examination, close to each
other. The height of totalitarianism occurs when conformity has become so general
that there is no need for a police force. It is this pressure toward conformity that
upsets the relation between politics and the individual writer. The times are such
that, whether an author likes it or not, he will develop a strong feeling that he
ought to do something about the world; and this makes a purely aesthetic attitude
to life impossible.

18
(5) "WHY I WRITE"
Political Writing and Art
In this essay Orwell mentions four reasons why an author writes. The reasons are:
(1) sheer egoism; (2) aesthetic enthusiasm; (3) historical impulse; and (4) political
purpose. He then explains how these affected literature and politics in the middle
of the twentieth century. Orwell never completely worked out a satisfactory
answer to the problem of judging political literature. He does suggest a standard in
this essay when he says that "what I have most wanted to do throughout the past
ten years is to make political writing into an art." To achieve this end, the writer
must find some way to reconcile his life and interests with his political
responsibility. As an example of the difficulty of this task he refers to his Homage
to Catalonia, in which he tried "very hard to tell the whole truth without violating
my literary instincts." That book is flawed, however, as he agrees, by his inclusion
in it of a long chapter defending the Trotskyites and scolding the newspapers for
their distortion of the truth. In explanation he says: "I could not have done
otherwise. I have happened to know, what very few people in England had been
allowed to know, that innocent men were being falsely accused. If I had not been
angry about that I should never have written the book." Orwell concludes this
essay by saying:
Looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political
purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages,
sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.
(6) "THE PREVENTION OF LITERATURE"
The Imperative Need of Integrity in an Author
The central theme of this essay is integrity. Orwell here argues that the
acceptance of any political orthodoxy by an author would lead to a loss of integrity.
Discipline and group loyalty in such a case would necessarily keep questions of truth
in the background, because the writer would be asked to write on subjects with
which he cannot sincerely and truthfully deal if he has to defend the ideology with
which he has identified himself. According to Orwell, it is part of the historical
purpose of the imaginative writer to report the response of his senses, and not to
distort what he actually sees and hears. The essay Why I Write sums up this
position by saying that political bias should be frankly stated because the more one

19
is aware of it, "the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing
one's aesthetic and intellectual integrity." The retention of integrity is also
important, says Orwell, because literature is inseparable from honesty. His
argument is that, if political pressure towards conformity forces a writer to tell
lies in his work, his creative faculties would dry up. By telling lies Orwell does not
mean inventing fictions but asserting something in which the writer does not
himself fully believe. Now, the totalitarian State is based on a system of organized
lying. Personal opinion and conviction are unnecessary in a totalitarian State
because "truth" will either be an ever-shifting party interpretation or something
impossible to recover. The pressure which such shifts exert on the writer will
necssarily deprive him of personal opinion and force him to lie, ultimately drying up
his creative talent.
(7) “POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE"
The Effect of Party Politics
Here Orwell moves from theoretical conjecture into practical considerations

through a reiteration of the question of integrity. Political conformity creates a
gap between one's real and declared aims. This gap leads to insincerity, and from
insincerity to vagueness, imprecision and bad writing. A writer's acceptance of my
political orthodoxy makes it necessary for him to exercise a certain degree of
censorship upon his own writing because he is under an obligation to reflect the
party line. Party politics exerts not only a limiting but also a destructive effect on
the individual. The limiting effect occurs through the loss of personal conviction,
as a result of which the writer uses hackneyed phrases and idioms in order to keep
to the party opinion. Loss of conviction also encourages the writer to obscure the
real issues so that he may not be accused of faulty logic. The destructive effect is
due to the ability of the pre-fabricated phrases to relieve the writer of personal
responsibility to the extent of "partially concealing his meaning even from himself."
Orwell in this essay suggests that the language should be simplified as far as
possible: "If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of
orthodoxy." He even offers certain guide-lines to achieve simplicity. But he adds:
"Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." The most
important point, he says, is to let the meaning choose the word, rather than blindly
to assume the representational nature of language. To do so, the essay suggests
that we should begin by attempting to think of the meaning visually or sensually, in

20
material terms. Here one "can choose the phrases which will best cover the
meaning". Finally, one should think of the impression which the words will produce
on other people.
(8) "POLITICS VERSUS LITERATURE"
The Modern Writer's Dilemma
Here Orwell deals with the modern writer's dilemma and how to come to terms
with it. The dilemma is: Should a writer get involved in producing political
literature? The answer to this question is that a writer has no choice these days
because the times demand political involvement and comment. If a writer belongs
to the group of people who fully believe in a certain political creed, then there is no
problem for him. But if a writer belongs to that much larger group of people who at
various moments lack conviction, then he must separate party politics as far as
possible from his political writing. Orwell examines the question from the reader's
point of view, in his study of Swift in this essay. As a reader, Orwell finds himself
disagreeing with Swift not in the literary field but in the political field. Orwell
suggests that it is the reader who must learn to separate a writer's ideas from the
writer's literary skills in order to be able to enjoy a work. A reader's separation of
these two aspects is essential. A disagreement with the political idea in a work can
affect a reader's enjoyment of the artistic and aesthetic qualities of that work. If
a reader allows his own political beliefs to influence his aesthetic sense then he will
be basing his critical judgments on the shifting ideology of political necessity and
not on personal conviction. Just as the toss of personal integrity leads to weak
language and a poor style in writing, so it leads also unacceptable critical
judgments.
(9) "WRITERS AND LEVIATHAN"
Acceptance of Any Political Discipline, Undesirable
In the essays already considered above, Orwell notes that "current literary
criticism consists quite largely of a dodging to and fro between two sets of
standards," so that political theories can fit aesthetic judgments. In Writers and
Leviathan, he becomes more insistent, saying that every literary judgment consists
in "trumping up a set of rules to justify an instinctive preference, yet with a
dishonesty which is sometimes not even quarter-conscious." Literary judgments
constructed in this relative manner, he says, not only lack the conviction of the

21
critic but fail to assess the fundamental issues at hand. The result is that writers
with and without belief are lumped together indiscriminately, so that valid political
convictions can be dismissed as belonging to a faulty style rather than being
examined and discussed in terms of practical politics. Orwell goes on to say that
the "acceptance of any political discipline seems to be incompatible with literary
integrity". Here the key words are: "acceptance"; "political discipline"; and "literary
integrity". Acceptance means an unquestioning passivity, and control by the State.
Political discipline refers to a political party and implies a compliance with its
directives, explicit or implicit. Literary integrity stands for individual responsibility
to define personal politics and express oneself with belief and conviction. Orwell
does not mean to say that the writer should keep out of politics, but that there
should lie a "sharper distinction between his political and his literary loyalties". The
writer can cooperate with party politics in his everyday life, while rejecting
orthodoxy in his writing which should be "saner", more distanced, and more able to
criticize than party politics. In Orwell's view such a stance is in the end more
productive and helpful than conformity. Party politics functions on short-term,
negative rhetoric for expediency; while personal politics involves long-term,
positive rhetoric, not necessarily expedient but in the end highly practical. The
essay ends with Orwell's view that the belief that the truth will prevail is
distinctly questionable. But Orwell is here thinking of "truth" not as an absolute
which all people will recognize in the same manner. He here views "truth" as an
external materiality which each person evaluates differently. What can be in
common is the activity of evaluation, not the end-product; and that is an activity
which requires a challenging moral effort which many people tend to avoid.
Synopsis of the Novels of George Orwell
(1) "BURMESE DAYS" (1934)
Flory's Despair
Burmese Days may be regarded as a quite straightforward novel, using

autobiographical material. The strongest single impression conveyed by this novel is
of loneliness, a solitude which is the cause of bitter pain and unsatisfied longing.

22
The central character, Flory, is an English timber-merchant in Burma of the time

of British imperial rule.
He is a bachelor in early middle age, quite cut off by now from all contacts with
family or friends in Britain, and isolated also by temperament from the small
community of British officials and others in the place. He realizes the hypocrisy of
British imperialism; and he knows that his colleagues' values are shallow and narrow
though he himself has nothing to offer in their place. He wants to recreate the
Burmese national character and return the country to its primitive culture,
something which the native politicians, like the corrupt U Po Kyin, do not want.
Under the pressure of the system, Flory's moral character has deteriorated as
well, and therefore he believes his only hope for survival is Elizabeth
Lackersteen's love. He is painfully wrong about her and never finally sees that all
she desires is to find a "respectable" husband and to become a "burra memsahib".
When Elizabeth eventually rejects him, his last possibility disappears and he is
overcome by despair.
The Enslavement of the Tyrannical Wielder of Power
Flory's wretchedness is similar to the narrator's in "Shooting an Elephant" where

Orwell dramatizes even more pointedly the irony of the middle-class rise to
economic and political authority. The real nature of imperialism, as the narrator of
the essay learns, is that the wielder of tyrannical power is himself enslaved.
Knowing that he should not kill the elephant, he yet shoots the animal because the
Burmese crowd expects it and he must save face as a policeman.
Flory's End, Suicide
After a time, even though Flory has seen the hollowness of British imperialism, he
becomes a part of the system. Any strength that he might have possessed is
depleted. At last he becomes a victim of his own class. Brought up to believe in its
righteousness and honesty, he becomes aware of its hypocrisy; but his own
individuality has by now been absorbed by the organization. As all values lose their
validity for him, he disintegrates. Not even the opportunity of salvation in another
person or the possibility of choosing another system remains for him. Unlike the
lower classes, which have been able to maintain a sense of community, the middle
and upper classes provide no moral support to their members. The only choice
offered is between conformity and social isolation, both fatal for Flory. Eventually

23
Flory commits suicide, his action being his terrible protest against his failures.
Flory's suicide is a way of concluding the novel, but it is an essentially weak device
that resolves neither the theme of the book nor the problems inherent in the
colonial experience.
(This novel and its central character are based on Orwell's own experiences in
Burma where he had served as a police officer).
(2) "A CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER" (1935)
The Loss of Memory, and Its Consequences
In this novel the central character finds the strength for endurance after a
contact with the working class. Dorothy Hare, the only daughter of a widowed
Anglican curate, has built her life and faith on weak, rigid habits. She lives, like an
automaton, by religious catch-phrases. A sudden loss of memory, however, deprives
her of all imaginary props, namely her faith and her routine parish duties, which
have given some sort of order to her life. Thrown into the underworld of London
among migrant workers, bums, and prostitutes, she must learn how to cope with
existence and how simply to stay alive. The only fact that she knows with any
certainty is that she does not believe in anything. When she regains her memory,
she finds that she cannot go back to her father because of a scandal about her and
an older man, Mr. Warburton. Eventually she is rescued from a police court by a
rich uncle and sent to teach in an inferior private school. After nearly a year of
teaching, where she learns that the sole motive behind this type of lower-middle-
class school is profit, she returns to her father.
Life without Meaning
But Dorothy cannot readjust herself to her old faith. About the only thing which
has remained intact after her exile is, strangely, her virginity. Deprived of her old
faith, she is faced with absolute emptiness. But she has discovered that she is able
to exist on her own. She finds in herself the ability to live without meaning, to
survive despite inhuman conditions. At the end she even refuses any substitute for
her lost faith: "Either life on earth is a preparation for something greater and
more lasting, or it is meaningless, dark and dreadful." But she does resume her

24
responsibilities as a "clergyman's daughter" because in that, she begins to see,

remains her "salvation".
A Kind of Work-Ethic
Orwell appears to be advocating here a species of "work-ethic" which we can

understand as a devotion to the immediate and the particular in the interests of
survival. In the end Dorothy turns to the task of making costumes for the church
play. The problem of faith and no faith vanishes utterly from her mind.
(3) "KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING" (1936)
Embracing Failure
The central figure in this novel is Gordon Comstock who tries to defy society, as
Orwell himself did, by embracing failure. Comstock, the last member of an
enervated middle-class family, feels that there is nothing in contemporary society
to equal his talents, and so he goes under. But the mystique of failure is nothing
more than a revelling in self-pity, an adolescent gesture of defeatism designed to
avoid responsibility. It is not a sign of strength but rather of moral exhaustion;
akin to Flory's final act, it is a surrender, an admission that one can no longer
control one's own life. The acceptance of failure constitutes the last gasp of the
shallow liberal imagination confronted by hard fact.
The Choice
The reconstruction of Gordon's will is carried out through the agency of the girl,
Rosemary Waterloo (a name of obvious significance). She gives herself freely,
without fear of the consequences, when he is on the verge of final disintegration.
Becoming pregnant, she presents him with the choices of abortion, having the child
out of wedlock, or marriage and a return to his former advertising job. He accepts
the last course because, as he sees, it has something to do with life.
(4) "COMING UP FOR AIR" (1939)
The Story of a Middle-Aged Insurance Agent
The basic situation and several details in this novel come from the French writer,
Marcel Proust. The novel tells the story of George Bowling who is a middle-aged
man from the lower-middle-class, closely involved with family and friends, and

25
caught up in the social and economic system. Bowling is a rather stout,

undistinguished-looking insurance agent living with his wife and two children on a
jerry-built housing estate in the Thames Valley. He is in search of the past time:
that is to say, the way of life which he known during his boyhood in the small
market-town of Lower Bin field.
Three Phases of Bowling's Life: the First Phase
The life and times of George Bowling are described in three phases. First, there is
the Edwardian boyhood in a quiet Oxfordshire market-town, which is presented
convincingly and unsentimentally. In this portion of the novel, describing the life of
a lot very prosperous shop-keeping family, Orwell is obviously indebted to H. G.
Wells (above all to Wells's novel, History of Mr. Polly). The one feature of the
Edwardian time which, in Bowling's view, differentiated it from what followed, was
a feeling of security, even when people were not really secure. This feeling of
security is in the following manner:
More exactly, it was a feeling of continuity. All of them knew they'd got to die, and
I suppose a few of them knew they were going to go bankrupt, but what they didn't
know was that the order of things could change. Individually, they were finished,
but their way of life would continue. Their good and evil would remain good and evil.
They didn't feel the ground they stood on shifting under their feet.
The Second Phase
World War I brings an end to this kind of stability and iniates what Bowling calls "a
ghastly flux". Bowling finds himself removed from the grocer's shop and, after
some service in France, becomes an officer with the ridiculous responsibility of
guarding twelve tins of beef on the Cornish coast. For Bowling, the war upsets not
only his individual attitudes and expectations but also the whole social and moral
order of England: "After that unspeakable idiotic mess you couldn't go on
regarding society as something eternal and unquestionable, like a pyramid. You knew
it was just a balls-up."
The Third Phase
After the war Bowling returns to a society which is permeated by a feeling of fear.
This society is the same which Orwell had already described in Keep the Aspidistra
Flying; but in this later novel the horror and the vulgarity of it are described very

26
elaborately. There is the fear of losing a job; there is the commuter's round; there
are the shoddy new suburban housing estates which sprawl over the countryside
and bury Lower Binfield; there are the cheap clothes, the mass-produced furniture
and food, and the mad ideologies preaching hatred, a hatred which originates from
the all-pervasive fear symbolized by the dive-bombers which had raided London
during the war.
(5) "ANIMAL FARM" (1945)
Napoleon, the Pig, as an Autocrat
Animal Farm tells the story of how a number of animals drove away their human
master from the farm with their united strength and became the masters of the
farm. All the various animals participated in this revolt against their human master,
Mr. Jones by name. The animals proclaimed the ideal of equality and comradeship
and resolved to work together to improve the living conditions on their farm. Their
efforts bore fruits and they reaped a rich harvest. But the pigs, being the
cleverest and the most intelligent animals, emerged as the ruling class, and the
ideal of equality was soon forgotten. The pigs were led by two very dynamic leaders
called Napoleon and Snowball, who were skilfully assisted by another pig called
Squealer. Soon a rivalry began between Napoleon and Snowball. Napoleon, by his
machinations, was able to drive away Snowball from the farm with the help of his
fierce dogs whom he had secretly reared and trained. After the expulsion of
Snowball, who was never afterwards seen on the farm, Napoleon became the sole
leader of the community of animals. But after a very short time Napoleon began to
violate and deviate from all the Seven Commandments which had been formulated
at the beginning for the guidance of the conduct of all the animals on the farm.
Napoleon then became an even more autocratic ruler of the farm than Mr. Jones
had been in his days of the ownership of the farm. The pigs as a class began to be
treated as a superior caste and a privileged group, while all the other animals
(horses, cows, sheep, etc.) had to be contented with a subservient role.
One Commandment Enough
Napoleon ordered the building of a windmill to generate electricity for the farm,
and all the animals had to toil very hard to build the windmill under the general
supervision of the pigs. Boxer, a cart-horse, proved to be the most hard-working

27
animal, and he showed his devotion to Napoleon by adopting a motto: "Napoleon is

always right", in addition to his previous motto: "I will work harder." The windmill,
when almost complete, was brought down by a furious winter gale. Napoleon,
assisted by Squealer, gave out that the windmill had been destroyed by Snowball
who had crept to the farm under the cover of darkness and pulled the windmill
down. All the other difficulties and hardships, such as the shortage of food and
the threat of starvation, were also attributed by Napoleon to the mischief being
done by Snowball, even though nobody had seen Snowball anywhere after Snowball
had been driven away by Napoleon's dogs. The windmill was rebuilt, but it was again
destroyed, this time by a neighbouring farmer by the name of Mr. Frederick. This
time again it was given out that Snowball had helped Mr. Frederick in the
destructive business and that Snowball was pursuing his vicious activities against
Animal Farm. The windmill was built a third time and was put to some use on Animal
Farm. Squealer continued to spread the propaganda against Snowball who, as has
already been pointed out, was not at all in the picture. Continuing his violations of
the Seven Commandments, Napoleon ordered the execution of all those animals
whom he suspected of being his opponents. The killings were carried out by
Napoleon's dogs. The Seven Commandments were then reduced to only one which
ran as follows: "All Animals Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal." This
modification of the original Seven Commandments meant that the pigs had to be
recognized by all as a superior class having the right to govern all the other
animals. Napoleon and the other pigs now also adopted the practice of walking on
their two hind legs and holding whips in their trotters. This they did in imitation of
human beings who have only two legs to walk upon. In this way Napoleon violated
yet another of the original Commandments. Napoleon went on becoming more and
more autocratic till he became a complete dictator and established a totalitarian
form of government on the farm.
The Moral of the Story
The moral of the story is that the revolutionaries, who overthrow an autocratic
regime, themselves become autocratic in course of time because, by acquiring more
and more power, they become more and more selfish and begin to aim at self-
glorification and self-aggrandisement. Thus, they betray the revolution, just as
Napoleon betrayed it on Animal Farm and Stalin betrayed it in Russia.

28
(6) "NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR" (1949)
A Satirical Novel about the Future
Nineteen Eighty-Four is Orwell's satirical novel about the future. It is a warning to

the world, a very vivid presentation of the terror that could occur in the near
future if all the totalitarian ideas were put into practice and we were all compelled
to live in a world of fear.
A Permanent State of War
England in 1984 is no longer called England but "Airstrip One", a province of

Oceania. Besides Oceania there are two other Powers on earth: "Eurasia and
Eastasia." These three Powers are engaged in a permanent war for control of a
densely populated but militarily helpless no-man's-land situated between them in
India, Africa, and Indonesia. The war is conducted, however, without a desire to
win, for none of the Powers is interested in bringing it to an end. There is even a
suspicion that the government of Oceania occasionally fires rocket bombs, which
fall on London, in order to remind the population of the war and keep them in a
state of fear and hatred. By tacit agreement, highly destructive weapons like the
atomic bomb are not used by any of the Powers.
The Rewriting of History by the Ministry of Truth
One of the functions of the Ministry of Truth is constantly to rewrite history so

as to suit the purposes of the Party which governs Oceania. Those, who know the
truth and try to remember things which the Party wants to be forgotten, are re-
educated in the prisons and torture-chambers of the Thought Police. They are
liquidated and "vaporized"; and they become "un-persons" whom no one is allowed to
mention. The Party thus also controls not only the present but the past also.
Three Classes of Society in Oceania
The society of Oceania consists of three classes: the dominant, privileged few
called the "Inner Party"; the closely watched agents of this power, called the
"Outer Party"; and the "proles" or the masses who have to be kept under control by
acts of terror or by entertainment, but who are otherwise unimportant. (The
proles constitute eighty-five per cent of the population).

29
The Administrative Set-up of the Totalitarian State
The supreme dictator has the title "Big Brother" and his portrait with a bushy
moustache looks down threateningly from every wall. He is a man without equal,
knowing everything, and always correctly predicting everything. (It is not quite
clear whether this man really exists or is a mythical figure). There is an
underground movement directed against the Party and led by the Jew, Emmanuel
Goldstein who, however, is a mere invention of the Party. Periodically, the hatred
of the masses for this non-existent leader of underground opposition is
systematically aroused, especially during the so-called "Hate Week" which is
observed once a year and which reaches its climax in the public execution of
thousands of war criminals. There is a Ministry of Peace which is responsible for
war; there is a Ministry of Love which concerns itself with political crimes,
especially the so-called "thoughtcrime". And there is a Ministry of Plenty which
administers an economy of permanent shortages.
Wretchedness and Misery in Life
The wretchedness and misery of life in the England of 1984 leave a strong
impression upon our minds. Despite constant production efforts and successful
Three-Year Plans, there are never enough goods to buy. Everything is State-owned,
and nothing is genuine stuff—Victory coffee, Victory gin, Victory cigarettes; even
the apartment block in which the hero of the novel lives’ is called Victory Mansions.
There is a smell of cabbage on the staircase; the running water is luke-warm at
best; and the elevator is out of order. The telescreen is a kind of television set
which at the same time records the picture of the spectator; it is installed
everywhere, in homes, in offices, in parks and other public places, so that no one is
safe from the prying eyes of the Thought Police who keep everybody under
surveillance. The official language is called "Newspeak" the object of which is to
make free thought impossible through abbreviations and amplifications. The three
great slogans of the Party are: "Peace is War": "Freedom is Slavery"; and
"Ignorance is Strength".
The Sad Love-Story
Despite everything, there is a love-story in the book, and love itself is taboo in
Oceania. A clerk of the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith, falls in love with a girl
called Julia who works in the one Ministry though in a different department. Both

30
of them are inwardly opposed to Big Brother, to the Party, and to all that the Party
stands for. They reveal their secret thoughts to O'Brien whom they look upon as a
kindred spirit but who proves to be a fanatical supporter of the Party and who
eventually has them arrested. Winston Smith is subjected to various tortures till
he breaks down completely and is then converted to the Party creed.
The Importance of the Past
Orwell's object in writing this book clearly was to warn
mankind of the dangers that are in store for them if the present
trends towards authoritarianism and totalitarianism continue. The dangers

visualized by him may not (indeed, they did not) materialize in 1984 but they will
surely materialize one day if adequate safeguards against them are not employed.
For his fictitious description of the future, Orwell borrowed his material largely
from Soviet Russia, but he also borrowed certain elements from Fascism and
Nazism. However, the novel's scope becomes even wider if we were to assume that
Orwell's theme is the totalitarian danger that lies within ourselves and in all the
political systems of our time. Orwell's main concern is the recognition of how
closely human freedom is allied to historical truthfulness, to an authentic
recording of the past. Absolute power is maintained by parties and governments by
depriving people of their past, the beauty and value of the past, and by giving them
a concoction of lies invented by the Ministry of Truth. Winston Smith in this novel
can free himself from the domination of Party ideology only by remembering his
earliest childhood impressions, by recalling traditional England as it was before the
"Revolution", and by preparing the way to the historical truth that leads back to
the real past. When Winston conspires against the dictatorship with his girl friend,
they emphasize their fatal decision by drinking real wine, and they cannot find a
better thing to drink to than "to the past".
Some Basic Ideas in Orwell's Work

A Writer with a Definite Point of View About Things
There are certain basic ideas in Orwell's entire work. His novels, essays,
descriptive sketches, and the volumes of his biography—all have the same
object, which is to impart to the reader a certain point of view, often about some

31
definite, limited topic such as the Spanish Civil War and the treatment of tramps
in casual wards, but in any case about some issue over which he felt that he should
take sides.
Orwell uses his work as an instrument for strengthening the support for the side
which he takes. Orwell was a novelist who did not write any novel which can be
regarded as wholly satisfactory; he was a literary critic who never tried to learn
his trade properly; and he was a social historian whose history was full of gaps. And
yet he was an important writer whose work still matters. It is as polemic that his
work is magnificent. He possessed in exactly the right combination the virtues of
urgency, incisiveness, clarity, and humour, in short, all those virtues which the
polemic kind of writing demands.
His Views, Derived Largely From
His Personal Circumstances
Much of what Orwell wrote was derived from his own personal character and
experience. His opinions were, to a large extent, the automatic result of his
upbringing and environment. For instance his hatred of sham and cant was obviously
due at least partly to the fact that he came from what he called the "lower-
middle-class". The lives of such people were a network of evasions and petty half-
deceptions. Orwell himself rejected this attitude to life. In fact, his renunciation
of this kind of life was spectacular, because his impatience with any kind of falsity
was extremely urgent. His rejection of his own real name (which was “Eric Blair”)
was part of this renunciation. But, while all this must be admitted, all his beliefs
did not arise from his own personal. All his ideas cannot be dismissed as products
of his own personal circumstances, or as mere reflexes. His wish to identify
himself with the working class is an example. He has frankly admitted, in the
autobiographical passages of The Road to Wigan Pier, that a good deal of this
feeling arose from the events of his own life. He had spent five years in the Indian
Imperial Police, and this experience had given rise in him to an extreme hatred of
oppression and for this reason, when he returned in 1927 to England where the
working class was already facing tremendous unemployment, he transferred to
them the feelings of sympathy which he had experienced for the Burmese people.
In this connection he wrote:

32
I had reduced everything to the simple theory that the oppressed are always right
and the oppressors are always wrong: a mistaken theory, but the natural result of
being one of the oppressors yourself. I felt that I had got to escape not merely
from imperialism but from every form of man's dominion over man.
This was the chief reason for his emotional identification with the working people,
and this identification he occasionally carried to absurd lengths.
The Rationale Behind His Support to the Working Class
This does not, however, mean that we should dismiss Orwell's advocacy of the
working class as a mere personal whim belonging to the sphere of biography rather
than that of ideas. We can find a clear exposition of the theme in his essay,
Looking Back on the Spanish War, where he writes:
The intelligentsia are the people who squeal loudest aganist Fascism and yet a
respectable proportion of them collapse into defeatism when the pinch comes.
They are far-sighted enough to see the odds against them, and moreover they can
be bribed—for it is evident that the Nazis think it worth while to bribe
intellectuals. With the working class it is the other way about. Too ignorant to see
through the trick that is being played on them, they easily swallow the promises of
Fascism, yet sooner or later they always take up the struggle again. They must do
so, because in their own bodies they always discover that the promises of Fascism
cannot be fulfilled. To win over the working class permanently, the Fascists would
have to raise the general standard of living, which they are unable and probably
unwilling to do.
If, instead the word "Fascist" in the above paragraph we use the general term
"totalitarian", we get the fundamental reason for Orwell's wish to support the
working class. It is a characteristically Orwellian position—grim, realistic, even
bleak. But it enables us to dispose of the charge that his support to the working
class was a mere personal whim. There is a case for considering his ideas as ideas,
and his arguments as arguments, rather than for attributing all his ideas and
arguments to purely personal experiences of the writer.
The Value of Honesty, and the Value of Freedom
Orwell was certainly no abstract thinker. His political ideas were of the simplest
kind. These ideas were frankly ethical. He believed in the need for being frank and

33
honest; and he believed in freedom for everyone, with no authoritative rule and no
tyrannizing, economic or political. These were the two pillars on which all his ideas
rested. Nor is it possible to separate these two beliefs of his from each other,
because in his eyes both these beliefs were essentially one and the same. He was a
very clear-sighted man, and he came to the definite conclusion that modern
tyranny works by means of dishonesty and evasion. Dishonesty and evasion enable a
government to subject the people to its repressive policies. Man naturally wishes to
have the freedom to do what he likes; he does not wish to be enslaved or to be put
in a cage. A dictator therefore tries to destroy the desire for freedom. If the
dictator can altogether eradicate the desire for freedom, no one will fight for
freedom because no one will be aware that there is any such thing as freedom.
That is why we have in Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four such devices to
destroy the desire for freedom as the Ministry of Truth, Doublethink, Newspeak,
etc. It is noteworthy that Orwell's picture of the future is not particularly
terrifying from the material point of view. Although he was alive when the atom
bomb was dropped twice on the Japanese people, his vision of 1984 does not
include weapons capable of destroying mankind altogether. Orwell was not
interested in extinction weapons because, fundamentally, they do not frighten him
as much as those weapons which destroy man's spirit. According to Orwell, the
death of the body is certainly a misfortune for man, but it is not as bad a
misfortune as the death of man's spirit. Besides, a dictator who orders large-scale
killings of people is easily recognized as a ruthless tyrant. But a dictator who
employs subtle methods of destroying the spirit of man and man's love of freedom
cannot easily be recognized as a brutal tyrant. That is why Orwell tried to focus
our attention at the very heart of the matter, namely the power of a totalitarian
state to erase the past by altering and distorting history, until every trace of
dissent disappears from the records. This is an important point, and the following
extract from the essay already named clearly brings it out:
There is no such thing as science. There is only German science, Jewish science,
etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the
leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the
leader says of such and such an event, "It never happened"—well, it never
happened. If he says that two and two are five—well, two and two are five. This
prospect frightens me much more than bombs—and after our experiences of the
last few years that is not a frivolous statement.

34
That, then, was the possibility which frightened Orwell more than bombs, and that
is the reason for the relative absence of bombs from his terrifying vision of the
future. He wanted to indicate the more deadly danger, namely the destruction of
man's spirit and man's desire for freedom. He also felt that some people might
unconsciously increase that danger. For instance, anyone who talked or wrote in
vague and smooth language was an enemy of freedom because such language tends
to cover up the issues which it claims to be discussing.
The Importance of Vivid and Truthful Language
According to Orwell, the language of free men must be vivid, candid, and truthful.
Those who take refuge is vagueness do so because they have something to hide. He
was convinced that frankness and candour are the price which we have to pay for
freedom. That is the reason why Orwell's own language is an excellent model of
English prose style. His language is characterized by a perfect simplicity and
clarity.
Orwell's Opposition to Orthodoxies and "Isms"
Orwell noted also that large numbers of modern people had attached themselves to
some sort of orthodoxy for mental and moral support. It might be Roman
Catholicism; it might be communism; it might be anarchism; it might be pacifism.
For most practical purposes Orwell did not see much difference between one form
of "ism" and another. In fact, any word ending with "ism" was enough to provoke his
contempt. Thus in The Road to Wigan Pier he wrote bluntly:
The Communist and the Catholic are not saying the same thing; in a sense they are
even saying opposite things, and each would gladly boil the other in oil if
circumstances permitted; but from the point of view of an outsider they are very
much alike.
And this opposition by Orwell to any "ism" was not merely temperamental; it was
not merely the consequence of his being a born rebel. It was based on a number of
firmly reasoned arguments. One of the chief of these arguments related to the
nature of the imagination.
A Genuine Writer's Attitude to Dogmas
In Orwell's opinion, an author who sacrificed his intellectual freedom was not a
genuine author. The ability to create, to imagine story and character, depended, in

35
Orwell's view, on the free use of the mind and the imagination. And this is exactly
what an orthodoxy or "ism" of any kind tends to prevent. Anyone who accepts a
statement of beliefs and who declares himself in favour of this or that "ism" is
bound to commit himself to a certain amount of hypocrisy, conscious or
unconscious. No intelligent person can ever shallow wholesale any dogma such as
Marxism or Roman Catholicism. People who accept such dogmas without any
reservations do so for reasons which are not intellectual in a strict sense. If people
like grocers and grave-diggers or their like accept these "isms", there is not much
harm done. But if any author does so, he is finished.
Orwell's Literary Criticism
Orwell's literary criticism is not that of a professional but of an amateur. Actually,

literary criticism is a trade which one has to learn, which is something specialized,
just as the writing of history is specialized. But Orwell had not thought deeply
enough about the nature of criticism. He had the amateur's tendency to talk only
about what caught his attention and to brush aside the rest. His essay on Tolstoy's
criticism of King Lear, is in many ways superb; but it contains some mis-statements
and even absurdities. He says, for instance, that Shakespeare has in this play told
the story rather clumsily. He says that the story is too drawnout and has too many
characters and sub-plots. In Orwell's opinion it would have been better if
Gloucester and both his sons were eliminated from the play. Now, these remarks by
Orwell show that he had not studied this play with the acuteness of a real literary
critic. He did not realize that the numerous echoes and inter-penetrations between
the main plot and the sub-plot are the chief technical means which Shakespeare
used to bind the play into a unity. However, we must not deny that Orwell's essay
on King Lear contains also many moving and impressive utterances about human life.
It is an essay which will continue to be relevant as long as human beings have moral
problems.
Orwell's Valid Estimate of Kipling
Therefore it is not for the sake of literary criticism in the real sense that
Orwell's essays on books can be perused. Like his novels, his literary criticism is a
blunt, honest presentation of the important issues as he saw them, usually with a
strong practical bias. But it must be admitted that in a few cases this limitation
actually operates as a strength. The essay on Kipling is perhaps the best example.
Kipling is not an author of subtle shades or recondite and abstruse effects; his

36
work presents no technical problems, even simple ones like that of the relationship
of plot and sub-plot in King Lear. It was therefore possible for Orwell to arrive at
a valid estimate of Kipling merely by being clear-sighted about Kipling's subject-
matter. The result is the best defence which Kipling has ever had. It was
characteristic of Orwell that he found something to admire in Kipling. He saw that
it did not excuse Kipling's follies, or make him a more pleasing writer, but in
Orwell's eyes a readiness to make decisions and do something was worth a great
deal of subtlety.
The Problem of Faith, Not Dealt With in Orwell's Work
All his life, one of Orwell's favourite targets of ridicule was the "progressive" who
cares more that his ideas should be "advanced" than that they should be realistic
and workable. In his essay on H. G. Wells, for example, he pointed out that what
had kept England on its feet during the year 1940-41 was the intense emotion of
patriotism, the ingrained feeling of the English-speaking peoples that they are
superior to foreigners. If the English left-wing intellectuals, says Orwell, had
succeeded in breaking down this feeling of the English people, England would have
been conquered by Germany. This view of Orwell's shows that what interested him
was not the theoretically tidy or impressive soultion, but the one that worked—and
worked here and now. In fact, all the strengths and weaknesses of Orwell's work
come out of the fact that he is a writer of polemic. It may seem to some people
surprising and disappointing that Orwell should have steadfastly refused to tackle
in his work the problem which he thought to be the most urgent of all, namely the
problem of faith. As early as A Clergyman's Daughter, he emphasizes his view that
human life is futile without religious faith. And as late as the essay on Arthur
Koestler, he wrote: "The real problem is how to restore the religious attitude while
accepting death as final." If this was indeed the real problem, we may ask why he
did not deal with it. The reply is that he believed that privation and brute labour
should be abolished before the real problems of humanity can be tackled. The
chief problem of our time is the decline in the belief in immortality. Now this
problem cannot be tackled while the average human being is either toiling like an ox
or trembling with fear of the secret police. So Orwell postponed the chief problem
and preferred to deal with the one nearest at hand.

37
George Orwell: The Writer
Concerned More With Ideas Than With Form or Style
George Orwell always wrote to a purpose outside writing itself, so that the form of
a literary work was never for him an end in itself, and he never indulged in stylistic
experimentation for its own sake. Even in discussing other writers, he did not show
much interest in the formal aspects of their work. He was much more concerned
with the ideas and the moral impulses found in the works of an author.
The Importance of Words and of Description in His Eyes
One important aspect of Orwell as a writer is that he attached a great importance

to the words and to description. He tells us that, in reading Paradise Lost, he all at
once "discovered the joy of mere words, that is, the sounds and associations of
words," and he goes on to say: "As for the need to describe things, I knew all about
it already." And then he goes on to show how this double preoccupation with words
and with description determined the kind of books he wished in his youth to write:
I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of

detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which
words were used partly for the sake of their sound.
Words in his case are intended to play a dual role as evocative sounds and as the
means not only to exact description but also to argumentation and moral-political
discussions. This double movement of Orwell's prose can be seen most effectively
in the kind of autobiographical, polemical reportage which he developed as his most
characteristic form of writing. The structure of such works is essentially, a logical
rather than an organic structure. In each book of this kind, Orwell catches our
attention by a fine descriptive piece which serves as a kind of introduction. We
enter Down and Out in Paris and London to the sound of the morning squabbles in a
certain locality; we slide into the world of slums and unemployment in The Road to
Wigan Pier through the seedy entrance-hall of the Bookers' lodging house; and the
whole heroic tone of Homage to Catalonia is set by the high-keyed moment of
Orwell's meeting with the Italian militiaman in Barcelona on the eve of his own
joining the fight for the Republican cause. The alternation of narration and

38
argument that follows can be observed in Down and Out. Basically the same form is
followed in both the other books which have been named above. In each case we
have a simple and unsophisticated form of construction.
One of the Best Writers of Reportage
Another point to be noted is that, while Orwell is always anxious, like a good
journalist, to provide an opening that will immediately create the reader's interest,
he is so little concerned about the endings that he generally closes a book with an
anticlimax. The last chapter of Down and Out is pointlessly pathetic, while The
Road to Wigan Pier ends in a stale joke. Only in Homage to Catalonia is there an
increase in tension towards the end, when Orwell and his wife flee across the
frontier from Barcelona to France. This way of writing is quite appropriate to
books of this nature where the material of real life needs only the minimum of
arrangement, and where the sheer quality of the prose can carry the subject-
matter and the argument. This is why Orwell, with his love of description and his
love for words which give the right feeling to a scene or a thought, is one of the
best writers of reportage.
A Weakness in the Characterization
But the writing of novels is a different matter altogether. Here Orwell suffers
from several weaknesses in characterization and structure. Orwell could admirably
sketch a person whom he had met in real life and observed from the outside. Bozo
the screever in Down and Out is an obvious example. But Orwell found it very
difficult to create a fictional character, observed from within. Every major
fictional character drawn by Orwell has the same attitude as Orwell himself had,
even to the point of using the same language which Orwell himself was in the habit
of using, and also expressing Orwell's own most characteristic thoughts. Only one
fictional hero, namely George Bowling (in Coming Up For Air) develops enough vital
autonomy to live in our minds as a credible character, though even he has his
improbabilities. Orwell's characters are, in fact, extremely passive: all the
important things in their lives happen to them, and whenever they themselves try
to take action, which is usually in the form of rebellion against their passive role,
their attempt always ends in futility.

39
Minor Characters, Drawn More Effectively
As in the case of Dickens, it is usually the minor characters who are the most
effective in Orwell's novels. Orwell has successfully drawn characters like Mrs.
Creevy, the proprietress of the evil Ringwood Academy; Ellis in Burmese Days,
the fanatical hater of anyone with a coloured skin; and even, in a way George
Bowling, who is really a comic minor character magnified and seen from the
inside. If Orwell failed to create if thoroughly convincing major characters, it was
partly because of their passivity, partly because of their futility, and partly also
because these characters are never really defined in their relationships with other
people. Gordon Comstock in Keep the Aspidistra Flying has three major personal
relationships—with his sister, with his friend Ravelston, and with his girl Rosemary.
But in no case does the relationship come alive. The reason is partly because
Gordon is a highly self-centred man but mainly because there is no real
individuality about the other characters and consequently nothing which can strike
out against his egotism. In the other novels, the characters come to life only where
there is a touch of comedy or incongruity to strike a spark. An example is
Dorothy Hare's friendship with Mr. Warburton in A Clergyman's Daughter, which
is much more credible than the love-affair between Gordon and Rosemary (in Keep
the Aspidistra Flying) and the love-affair between Winston and Julia (in Nineteen
Eighty-Four). The only marriage in Orwell's novels that really arouses the reader's
interest is that of George and Hilda Bowling. In Burmese Days there is one very
convincing and moving relationship, that between Flory and Dr. Veraswami with all
its lovable misunderstandings, and with the pathetic loyalty all on one side. This
novel contains another relationship which has an important bearing upon the partial
nature Orwell's success as a novelist. Orwell was of the view that the true novel
always contains at least two characters, probably more, who are described from
the inside and on the same level of probability. Burmese Days is the only of
Orwell's novels which meets this requirement. Both Flory and Elizabeth
Lackersteen are seen from the inside. It is true that no kind of intimacy is ever
established between them, but such is the author's own intention. What does take
place is a confrontation in which they act upon, and define, each other, even though
they are always at cross purposes on account of Flory's chronic romanticism and
Elizabeth's chronic selfishness.

40
Each of the Six Novels, Representing a Different Type
Orwell's failures in characterization are closely connected with failures of general

structure in his books. He never arrived at any satisfactory "form" for a large
work of fiction. He was always searching for form. The result is that the six works
of fiction which he wrote represent almost as many different types. Burmese Days
can be accepted as a true novel in the tradition deriving from the French writer,
Flaubert. But it was followed by A Clergyman's Daughter which is a loose
picaresque with the elementary structure of a number of episodes hung on the
thread of a journey. Keep the Aspidistra Flying is certainly not a novel in the
traditional sense, and may be described as a burlesque. Coming Up For Air is a kind
of prose dramatic monologue held together mainly by the charm of George
Bowling's memories. It is a book almost without construction. Animal Farm, which
Orwell described as a fairy tale, is really a fable, and it is also the only one of his
novels possessing a perfectly tight economy, largely because it was built round an
actual historical incident, the Russian Revolution and its betrayal. Nineteen Eighty-
Four is a utopia. Here, again, Orwell took much pains over the construction, though
not with the same success as in Animal Farm. The main flaw of Nineteen Eighty-
Four is that it has two centres, a political and theoretical one, and the other a
human one. These centres come together when Winston is confronted by O'Brien in
the Ministry of Love. This is the point where Winston meets the power of the
Party in all its inhumane force. But Orwell fails at this crucial point to fuse the dual
purposes of the book.
Orwell's Descriptions; His Polemical Arguments;
and His Style
As against Orwell's weaknesses in characterization and in structure, there are his

achievements which are conspicuous. His descriptions are magnificent. His
polemical arguments are always highly readable. Each one of his books contains
episodes which not many writers can equal. His style is inimitable. Not since Swift
has there been a prose more lucid, flexible, exact, and eloquent than Orwell's. But
Orwell goes beyond Swift because he can speak in the tone of humour as well as
that of satire; he can sound the lyrical and the elegiac notes, besides the urbane
and austere ones. And his style is capable of many variations. The tone in which he
writes of Wigan, for example, is quite different from the tone in which he writes
of Aragon ; and the style in which he argues is different from that in which he

41
describes. In his novels, there are different forms of the Orwellian style. In
Burmese Days, for instance, Orwell's style is somewhat ornate but by no means
inappropriate to its rather exotic subject. In Coming Up For Air, there is an
immense gain in vigour, and the language is far more colloquial. In Animal Farm,
Orwell reaches the ultimate point of simplification. This style is a model of direct,
clear writing. The language of Animal Farm is Orwell's highest literary achievement
because it is appropriate to that particular story and would not be appropriate to
any other kind of story. More than any other writer of his time, Orwell learned to
"let the meaning choose the word," which meant to let every meaning choose its
word and the tone of its word.
George Orwell: His Character and Reputation
Not a Gloomy Man. An Illuminating Conversationalist, Handicapped By a Weak Voice
Michael Meyer in his "Memories of George Orwell" gives us the following account
of Orwell's temperament and character:
I remember him as, not merely the most courteous, kindly, and lovable man I have
known, but as the one of all my friends with whom, if I could today, I would choose
to spend an evening. I have heard people describe him as taciturn; one brilliant
talker of my acquaintance once referred to him as "gloomy George". I never found
him gloomy. He had a weak voice and could not raise it to make himself heard above
a loud adversary or a general conversation. Once he took me to one of the weekly
lunches which he, Anthony Powell, and Malcolm Muggeridge used to hold (at the
Bourgogne Restaurant in Gerrard Street), and I remember him trying several times
to say something and abandoning the attempt half-way because of the noise.
Another time I took him to supper with a politician who was later to become a
cabinet minister, a delightful man but inclined to hold forth in a powerful voice. I
had much looked forward to listening to them debate; but after a few unsuccessful
efforts to get a word in, George quietly and with perfect courtesy became a silent
auditor like the rest of us.

42
He was a shy man; but if one prompted him and listened, he was a most rewarding
conversationalist. Above all, he was the best-informed and most illuminating talker
about politics whom I have ever met. His conversation was like his writing,
unaffected, lucid, witty, and humane; and he was, even to those of us who were
young and brash, the kindest and most encouraging of listeners. Apart from the
odd paranoiac like H. G. Wells, I wonder if he died with a single enemy.
Views Expressed in Obituaries
Some of the obituaries written at Orwell's death throw considerable light on

Orwell's character and talents. V. S. Pritchett wrote as follows:
George Orwell was the wintry conscience of a generation which in the 'thirties had
heard the call to the rasher assumptions of political faith. He was a kind of saint
and, in that character, more likely in politics to chasten his own side than the
enemy. His instinctive choice of spiritual and physical discomfort, his habit of going
his own way, looked like the crankishness which has often cropped up in the British
character; if this were so, it was vagrant rather than puritan. He prided himself on
seeing through the rackets, and on conveying the impression of living without the
solace or even the need of a single illusion.
There can hardly have been a more belligerent and yet more pessimistic Socialist;
indeed his Socialism became anarchism. In corrupt and ever worsening years, he
always woke up one miserable hour earlier than anyone else and, suspecting
something fishy in the site, broke camp and advanced alone to some tougher
position in a bleaker place; and it had often happened that he had been the first to
detect an unpleasant truth or to refuse a tempting hypocrisy. Conscience took the
Anglo-Indian out of the Burma police, conscience sent the old Etonian among the
down and outs in London and Paris, and the degraded victims of the Means Test or
slum incompetence in Wigan; it drove him into the Spanish civil war and, inevitably,
into one of its unpopular sects, and there Don Quixote saw the poker face of
Communism. His was the guilty conscience of the educated and privileged man, one
of that regular supply of brilliant recalcitrant which Eton has given us since the
days of Fielding; and this conscience could be allayed only by taking upon itself the
pain, the misery, the dinginess and the pathetic but hard vulgarities of a stale and
hopeless period.

43
And Bertrand Russell wrote:
George Orwell was equally remarkable as a man and as a writer. His personal life
was tragic, partly owing to illness, but still more owing to a love of humanity and an
incapacity for comfortable illusion. In our time the kind of man who, in Victorian
days, would have been a comfortable Radical, believing in the perfectibility of Man
and ordered evolutionary progress, is compelled to face harsher facts than those
that afforded our grandfathers golden opportunities for successful polemics. Like
every young man of generous sympathies, Orwell was at first in revolt against the
social system of his age and nation, and inspired with hope by the Russian
Revolution. Admiration of Trotsky, and experience of the treatment meted out to
Trotskyites by Stalinists in the Spanish Civil War, destroyed his hopes of Russia
without giving him any other hopes to put in their place. This, combined with illness,
led to the utter despair of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
"Animal Farm": An Introduction
Orwell's Difficulties in Having the Book Published
Animal Farm was written by Orwell between November 1943 and February, 1944,
after the Battle of Stalingrad and before the Allied invasion of Normandy. This
was the time when the Allies had first become victorious and when they had
developed a strong feeling of solidarity with the Russians.
The book was rejected by various publishers—Gollancz, Cape, and Faber—for

political reasons. These publishers did not think it expedient to give offence to
Soviet Russia which was a close ally of the western democracies in the war against
Hitler and which was the obvious target of satire in the book. Even though Orwell
could understand the reasons for the refusal of these publishers to accept his
book, he was yet shocked by their attitude. T.S. Eliot, a director of Faber, had,
however, some soothing words to say about the book. Eliot compared Orwell to
Swift and praised the literary qualities of the fable in Orwell's book. But Eliot,
who wrongly assumed that the most intellectual animals were best qualified to run
the farm, was unwilling to publish the book on the ground that it was a negative,
Trotskyite criticism of Soviet Russia. Eliot thus expressed his

44
reaction to the book:
We agree that it is a distinguished piece of writing; that the fable is very skilfully
handled, and that the narrative keeps one's interest on its own plane—and that is
something very few authors have achieved since Gulliver's Travels. On the other
hand, we have no conviction that this is the right point of view from which to
criticize the political situation at the present time.
My own dissatisfaction with the apologue is that the effect is simply one of
negation. It ought to excite some sympathy with what the author wants, as well as
sympathy with his objections to something: and the positive point of view which I
take to be generally Trotskyite is not convincing............And, after all, your pigs are
far more intellectual than the other animals and therefore the best qualified to
run the farm—in fact, there couldn't have been an Animal Farm at all without
them: so that what was needed (someone might argue), was not more communism
but more public-spirited pigs.
Published in August, 1945, at a Crucial Time
Orwell felt very offended by the letters of rejection which he received from the
various publishers. In July he wrote to his agent that if Seeker and Warburg did
not publish it, he would publish it himself and that he had already half-arranged
for the necessary financial backing. However, eventually the book was published by
Secker and Warburg in August, 1945, at a crucial time in world history. During the
previous four months, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler had died; Churchill had been
voted out of office; Germany had surrendered; and the atomic bomb had exploded
over Hiroshima (in Japan). Of the Big Three (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin), only
Stalin still survived.
The Success of "Animal Farm"
That mouth was also a turning-point in Orwell's life, because half a million copies of
Animal Farm were sold through the American Book-of-the-Month Club, and it was
translated into thirty-nine languages. By 1950 Orwell had earned a lot of money
from the book and had become prosperous for the first time in his writing career.
Radio versions of Animal Farm were broadcast by the B.B.C. in 1947 and 1952, and
the book was made into an extremely effective animated cartoon in 1954. By 1972
the sales of this book in various editions had reached eleven million. However, the
reactions of the critics to this book varied. The judgments of the critics were

45
influenced mainly by their own attitudes toward Stalinist Russia. Those who
favoured Stalin's regime in Russia disapproved of the book, and found fault with it,
while those who were themselves critical of Stalin's policies or who felt more
inclined towards Trotsky had nothing but praise for it. One of the critics of the
latter category wrote that Animal Farm was "the most compact and witty
expression of the left-wing British reaction to Soviet Communism and a wise,
compassionate and illuminating fable for our times." The adverse criticisms of the
book included the view that the parallelism of Stalinism and Czarism was complete
nonsense and that the final metamorphosis of pigs into humans at the end was a
fantastic disruption of the sober logic of the tale.
Orwell's Exposure of the Totalitarian Regime in Russia
The driving force behind Animal Farm (and also Nineteen Eighty-Four) was Orwell's
intense disgust with totalitarianism, combined with an even stronger disgust with
its defenders among the left-wing intellectuals. From 1935 onwards Orwell had
begun to feel more and more convinced that Russia had taken the wrong path and
had become a tyrannical dictatorship. He therefore thought it necessary in the
interest of world socialism to expose the Stalin myth. In the nineteen-thirties and
forties, especially after Russia had come into the war, a large number of the
younger British intellectuals had joined the British Communist Party or had become
its sympathizers. Orwell strongly disapproved of these British intellectuals
because in his opinion they were supporting the Stalinist propaganda, which Orwell
thought to be all lies, at the cost of truth, freedom, and ultimately of literature.
He wrote Animal Farm to expose the reality of the Russian Revolution and the
betrayal of the Revolution by the Soviet regime under Stalin.
Orwell, a Leftist Despite His Condemnation
of Communism
The starting-point of any successful satire is an aggressive, combative attitude to

political experience. This had been the starting-point of Swift, the greatest of the
English satirists. In Orwell's opinion, Swift was politically one of those persons who
are driven into a sort of perverse Toryism in politics by the follies of the liberal
and progressive party of the moment. However, Orwell said that he did not feel
compelled to give up his socialistic ideas or to join the Tories in England. He
continued to support the Left of the English Labour Party, even though he became

46
a strong and determined foe of Communism as being practised in Soviet Russia.

Animal Farm is a book which brings into a clear focus Orwell's hatred of, and
antagonism towards, the working of the Communist system in Russia. Although
Animal Farm seems to be a gay book, animated by an abundance of wit and humour,
yet the inspiration behind it came from Orwell's indignation at, and disgust with,
Communism in Russia, even though the satire in the book goes beyond a
condemnation of Russia and extends to all revolutions because, in Orwell's view,
every revolution is, in the long run, betrayed by the new leadership which emerges
and which soon itself becomes dictatorial like the regime which it had ousted.
Orwell's Choice of the Animal Fable
For the writing of Animal Farm Orwell chose a very ancient genre, based on the
animal stories found in the folk-tales of all primitive cultures and reflecting a
familiarity and sympathy with animals which Orwell definitely shared. The central
figure in such stories is often the trickster: the spider in America, and the fox in
Europe. In Animal Farm, the trickster is a pig. The animal stories written by the
Greek author, Aesop, are well-known. The technique employed by Aesop was
subsequently perfected by the French writer, La Fontaine. An animal story by La
Fontaine always carries a moral or political lesson. Orwell has given the following
account of how the idea for the writing of Animal Farm came to him:
I saw a little boy, perhaps, ten years old, driving a huge cart-horse along a narrow
path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals
became aware of their strength we should have no power over them and that men
exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat. I
proceeded to analyze Marx's theory from the animals' point of view.
And Orwell has also stated that since the Spanish Civil War he had been convinced
that "the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of
the Socialist movement." (It is necessary clearly to understand the difference
between Socialism and Communism in order to be able to appreciate Orwell's
attitude towards both these forms of government). In the opinion of some, the
cart-horse Boxer in Orwell's book represents the long-suffering Russian workers
and peasants, and is the hero of the tale. Once Orwell had this image of the
exploitation of the poor by the rich in his mind, he went on to develop Old Major's
(that is Karl Marx's) theory of revolution as applied to animals. Orwell used the
tradition of the animal-story with great confidence and deftness. And, since he

47
wanted to reach the widest possible readership through translations into other
languages, he also parodied the style of children's books.
An Allegorical Book
Animal Farm also belongs to the genre of allegory, because it has a point-to-point
correspondence with the events of Russian history from 1917 to 1943—the war of
intervention, the New Economic Plan, the First Five-Year Plan, the expulsion of
Trotsky and the seizing of supreme power by Stalin, the Hitler-Stalin pact, the
German invasion of Russia, etc. etc. It is also an apocalypse, like the Book of Daniel
in the Bible, in that it moves imperceptibly from the past through the present to
the future. It therefore ends with prophecy. Though literally the last episode,
when the pigs sit down to drink with the farmers, is meant to represent the
Teheran Conference, when Stalin met the allied leaders, it is also a forecast of
Russian politics. And to a great extent the forecast has proved true because the
Russians have become as imperialistic in their handling of subject-nations as any of
the past empires ever had been.
Previous Attacks on Stalinist Russia
Animal Farm belongs to the category of the following books:
(1) The Revolution Betrayed, which was written in 1937 by Trotsky after he had
been driven out of power by Stalin.
(2) Return From the U.S.S.R., written by the French author, Andre Gide in 1937.
(3) Darkness at Noon written by Arthur Koestler in 1941.
All these books were strong attacks on the Stalinist regime, and they all preceded
Animal Farm. But Animal Farm also anticipated a famous attack on Soviet Russia.
This was a book called The God That Failed which was compiled in 1949 by
Crossman. Yet another denunciation of the Soviet regime came in a book called The
New Class (1957) by Djilas.
A Summing-Up of the Message of "Animal Farm"
In an essay written in 1946 (a year after the publication of Animal Farm) Orwell
wrote:

48
History consists of a series of swindles in which the masses are first lured into
revolt by the promise of utopia and then, when they have done their job, enslaved
over again by new masters.
This remark is in fact a summing-up of the message of Animal Farm. In his preface,
written in 1947, to one of the editions of Animal Farm, Orwell wrote:
The man-hunts in Spain went on at the same time as the great purges in the
U.S.S.R. and were a sort of supplement to them. Nothing has contributed so much
to the corruption of the original idea of Socialism as the belief that Russia is a
Socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.
And so for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction of the
Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the Socialist movement.
The Animals in the Book, Thoroughly Convincing
Orwell in this book fused his artistic and political purposes so well that the animals
are thoroughly convincing on the literal level. His precise portrayal of the beasts is
based on his actual experience as a farmer at a place called Wallington where he
had lived from 1936 to 1940 and had kept a large number of animals. Orwell has
himself said that the most important animals in the story are the pigs and their
dogs who are frightening and ferocious. Orwell in his book has made use of the
repulsive associations of the swine which had figured in Homer's Odyssey. He was
also influenced by the talking horses in Swift's book Gulliver's Travels. In Swift's
book the yahoos worked like slaves for the Houyhnhnms as in Orwell's book the
other animals work like slaves for the pigs. Orwell seems really to have disliked
pigs, and his hostility to the pigs continued even after the writing of Animal Farm.
In 1948 when he was staying on the island of Jura, he wrote: "I have tried the
experiment of keeping a pig. They really are disgusting brutes."
Its Theme
Orwell described Animal Farm as a fairy story. In fact, it is an animal fable which
points two morals, one universal, the other topical. It exposes the corruptibility of
man, showing how the reformer abuses power when he seizes it from the tyrant,
and how in a revolutionary situation the most ruthless man will oust his colleagues
as rivals, and exploit the workers by cruelty and lies. The parallel with Russia was
so obvious and unwelcome at a time when Russia was an ally of Britain that Orwell
had considerable difficulty in getting the book published.

49
A Comparison with "Gulliver's Travels"
Animal Farm has many of the virtues of Gulliver's Travels: the appeal of the simple
narrative, the sharply-defined descriptions, the implicit comment on the folly and
villainy of mankind, the effect of complete naturalness once the opening situation
has been accepted. In one respect Animal Farm is finer than Gulliver's Travels—
the characterization is more varied, with Boxer, the loyal, hard-working cart-
horse; Squealer, the dictator's yes-man; Benjamin, the donkey, intent on survival;
and Mollie, the vain white mare.
A Child's Story; A Morality; A Political Satire
The fable was particularly suited to Orwell's talents. Human relationships were the
weak point of several of his novels, but the animals, each representing one quality,
corresponded to his stern, moral view of life Animal Farm enabled him to present
politics and economics in terms of morality with great effect. He was so clear-
sighted and wrote such lucid prose that he was able to create a detailed and
convincing picture of a strange world. It is a book that can be enjoyed on different
levels: as a child's story, as a morality, as a political satire. It has another
uncommon virtue—brevity. In a short compass it says all that a powerful mind has
to say on an important aspect of life.
Some Opinions About "Animal Farm"
Some of the opinions expressed by critics about Animal Farm may briefly be
quoted here to indicate the varying reactions to the book:
(1) "This novel is one of the two modern works of fiction before which the critic
must abdicate. There is so much truth in this (namely, Animal Farm) that I find it
very difficult to say anything useful about the book and yet a study of Orwell
cannot ignore it altogether." (Tom Hopkinson)
(2) "The story of Animal Farm is so familiar that it hardly needs detailed
recapitulation. The interpretation of the fable is plain enough. As I say, there is no
difficulty in interpreting the symbolism of the story." (Christopher Hollis)
(3) "Animal Farm is so well-known that it cannot be necessary to more than

mention some of its major felicities." (Richard Rees)

50
(4) "The story is too well-known for anything, but a brief summary to be given
here." (Edward Thomas)
(5) "Orwell produced a book so clear in intention and writing that the critic is
usually rather nonplussed as to what he should say about it; all is so magnificently
there." (George Woodcock)
The book has been rightly interpreted in terms of Soviet history, though it has not
been sufficiently recognized that the fable is extremely subtle and sophisticated.
Animal Farm brilliantly presents a satiric allegory of Communist Russia in which
almost every detail has its political significance.
"Animal Farm": The Historical Background
Animal Farm is a satire exposing Stalin's misdeeds after he had become the
dictator of Russia. As the story of Animal Farm allegorizes a number of incidents
in the history of Russia during Stalin's regime, it is necessary for the student to
know something about the historical events and the historical personalities who
figure in the story, though these events and these personalities are not directly
named but are presented in disguise.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx was a German economist and the founder of international revolutionary
Socialism. Of Jewish origin, he was born in 1818, and educated at the Universities
of Bonn and Berlin, where he studied history and philosophy. In 1849, Marx
migrated to London, where he spent the rest of his life. Marx was a leading
exponent of the materialistic conception of history. On the purely economic side he
held the theory that the working classes produce far more than they consume and
that this surplus value was inevitably consumed or accumulated by the capitalists
who allowed to the labourers inadequate wages to provide for their bare survival.
From this it followed that there could be nothing in common between the
employers (or the capitalists) and the labourers (or the proletariat). Marx called
upon the working people to develop this class-consciousness which, when

51
sufficiently developed, would result in a class-war in which the whole capitalist

system would be overthrown. Marx's views form the basis of Communism as
established in Soviet Russia. Marx died in London in 1883.
In Animal Farm, Marx appears as old Major in the very opening chapter when
Major (who is an experienced and wise boar on Mr. Jones's farm) summons a
secret meeting of all the animals and calls upon them to revolt against Mr. Jones.
Major tells the animals that Mr. Jones has been exploiting the labour of the
animals in order to lead a comfortable and luxurious life, while subjecting the
animals to incessant labour without even giving them adequate food.
The Russian Revolution of 1917
World War I broke out in 1914. Russia was at that time being governed by the
autocratic Czar, Nicholas. The affairs of the country were going from bad to
worse. The Czar and his ministers were unable to put the nation's business on a
sound footing. One Prime Minister after another tried to keep the old system
going. At last the army chiefs decided to join the popular leaders in submitting a
list of demands to the Czar. But, before this could be done, people who were
afflicted by hunger and starvation, and provoked by police action, brought about
the downfall of the Czar in March, 1917. This rebellion by the common people
against the authoritarian Czar, leading to the overthrow of the Czar, is known as
the Revolution of March, 1917. A provisional government was now set up. However,
from the very beginning, this provisional government was threatened and sabotaged
by the Soviet of workers' and soldiers' deputies, which had arisen overnight after
the collapse of the monarchy. This Soviet was dominated by the Bolshevists. After
several re-shuffles in the government, a leader by the name of Kerensky became
the Prime Minister. But he proved quite ineffective. Authority in the country was
now rapidly disintegrating; industrial production was falling; the countryside was in
a state of anarchy; and the armed forces were in a state of chaos. At this stage
Lenin, who had been in exile, returned to Russia and overthrew Kerensky's shaky
government on November 7, 1917; and the Soviets under his leadership established
themselves in supreme dictatorial authority. This was the real Revolution which
brought the Bolsheviks into power and established Communism in the country.
Trotsky was next in authority to Lenin; and leading Bolshevists acquired key posts
under the new regime. The new regime called itself a dictatorship of the

52
proletariat (that is, the common people); but it was, in fact, the dictatorship of a
very small group of men, led by Lenin and Trotsky, over the rest of the nation.
In 1924, Lenin died and there began a struggle between his principal followers, of
whom Trotsky and Stalin were the leaders. The personal rivalry between these two
men turned to a great extent on the future political course to be pursued. Trotsky
was of the view that a world revolution was necessary if Soviet Russia was to
continue with its Communist system of government because, according to him,
Socialism or Communism in one country alone had little chance of survival. Stalin
disagreed with this view, and with the views of other leaders. Stalin was able to
drive all these leaders out of power one by one. In 1927 he had become powerful
enough to be able to expel Trotsky and his supporters from the Communist Party
and then to banish them from Russia. In 1928 Stalin introduced the first five-year
plan which proved to be a powerful instrument of political terrorism at home and of
economic blackmail abroad. This plan aimed at bringing about collectivisation of
agriculture. For a long time the peasants refused to accept the concept of
collective farms and preferred to destroy their crops and cattle and to face
extermination themselves; but in the end they were brought under control, and
collectivised agriculture was established. Subsequently, more five-year plans were
introduced. In 1936, Stalin introduced a new constitution which gave to the
Communist Party a dictatorial position with the result that all those freedoms
which had initially been promised were now shelved. Stalin further consolidated his
power by holding trials of all those, who were suspected of being opposed to him,
and by ordering the execution of all who were convicted by the courts of treason
on the basis of the confessions which these men were forced to make. The
executions, known as the purges, were carried out during 1936-38. These Moscow
Trials and purges brought a lot of notoriety to Stalin.
Bolshevists
"Bolshevist" was a Russian political label, dating from 1903. In that year, the exiled
Russian social democratic party met in London where important differences in
doctrine and policy emerged. One faction advocated compromise and cooperation
with the moderates in order ultimately to overthrow the Czardom in Russia. The
other faction, led by Lenin, urged a purely proletarian revolution, putting into
practice the doctrine of Karl Marx, and involving a forcible seizure by the workers
of the control of all production, and the destruction of the capitalist regime in

53
favour of an administrative system in the hands of workers themselves. Lenin's

supporters were in a majority and they came thenceforward to be known as
"Bolshevists". The Bolshevists under Lenin subsequently seized complete power
through the revolution of November, 1917, the Czar having already been
overthrown in March of the same year.
Lenin
Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary and statesman, was born in 1870 on the banks
of the river Volga in Russia. In 1902 he moved to London, where he met Trotsky.
During the next two years he attended a series of international socialist
conferences and was recognized as an extremist. In November, 1917, Lenin, who
was at that time in Finland, returned to Russia and in the course of one night he
was able to drive away Prime Minister Kerensky from power, and to set up his own
government. As the new dictator of Russia, Lenin distinguished himself with many
achievements which attracted many disciples to his creed of Bolshevism, or
Communism as Lenin called it. Lenin's methods were pitiless, but he was convinced
that no other methods could succeed. He lived in constant danger to his life and, in
spite of his having a heavy bodyguard, he was fired at in 1918 and hit twice when
he was on his way to a workers' meeting. Efforts were made by his opponents to
liquidate him but by 1921 he was able to crush what may be called the counter-
revolution. By 1922, his health had begun to fail and he died on the 21st January,
1924 at Gorky near Moscow.
Lenin agreed with Marx in regarding the State as the instrument of the ruling
class; and therefore insisted on the initial necessity of violent revolution in order
to otherthrow the existing capitalist order. He, however, believed also that the
majority of the people must be won over by means of propaganda. The
parliamentary State and the concealed dictatorship of the capitalist class must, he
said, be replaced by a dictatorship of the proletariats or the working class. He
believed in doing away with all class distinctions and class privileges and in the
ultimate emergence of a classless society.
Stalin
Joseph Stalin was born in 1879 in a small Russian town. He was the son of a poor
peasant. In 1905, after having been exiled to Siberia several times and having
managed to escape each time, he met Lenin at the first Bolshevist Conference

54
being held in Finland. He contributed actively to the overthrow of the Kerensky's

government in November, 1917. In 1919, he was appointed by Lenin to a high
political and administrative post. When Lenin died in 1924, it was by no means
certain who would succeed him as the most powerful man in Russia. Stalin's position
was a strong one, but Trotsky was generally considered to be Lenin's most obvious
successor. Moreover, there were many other leading Bolshevists who had been very
close to Lenin and who were better known than Stalin. Indeed, a life-and-death
struggle among these various persons broke out almost immediately and lasted
fourteen years. It was only with the biggest and most brutal purges of 1936-38
that Stalin removed the last of his rivals from the scene, destroying them all one
by one. Trotsky was the earliest victim. After being banished from Russia and then
being persecuted in every country where he took refuge, Trotsky was finally
assassinated in Mexico by Stalin's agents. The others were made forcibly to
appear at endless trials, were compelled to accuse each other of the worst possible
crimes, and to confess having committed the most fantastic sins. They were
physically destroyed on a scale unprecedented in the history of the civilized world.
While this struggle was raging, Stalin in 1926 published his book, On The Problems
of Leninism, which reveals his political philosophy and offers many clues to his mind
and character. When Hitler's armies invaded Russia in 1941, Stalin personally
directed the Russian defences and the entire Russian war effort. Throughout the
Russo-German War, when most of the Soviet government leaders and officers were
evacuated to a safer place, Stalin remained in Moscow. In November, 1943, he
made his first journey abroad since 1912, to attend a meeting with Churchill and
Roosevelt at Teheran. He died on the 5th March, 1953. During his life, Stalin held
many honorary ranks and titles, including the "Order of the Red Banner" and the
title of "Hero of Soviet Union". (In Animal Farm, Stalin is presented as Napoleon,
the pig who soon after the rebellion against Mr. Jones, becomes the dictator of
the farm).
A Non-Aggression Pact Between Stalin and Hitler
Stalin and Hitler (who had emerged as the dictator of a powerful and militant
Germany) had for a long time been suspicious of each other. But now they came to
some sort of understanding on the 23rd August, 1939 and signed a non-aggression
within a few days of the signing of this treaty, World War II began. For about two
years Stalin was able to squeeze concession after concession out of Hitler; but on
the 22nd June, 1941, Hitler, without any prior warning, ordered his armies to

55
invade Russia. A bitter conflict between the German and the Russian armies now
began, the victory ultimately falling to Russia, though the victory was won at a very
heavy cost. In 1943 was held a meeting of the leaders of the three major Allied
powers— Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill. This meeting was held in Teheran, and
came to be known as the Teheran Conference. (Animal Farm deals with many of the
incidents narrated above and, according to Orwell's own statement, ends with the
Teheran Conference).
Trotsky
Leon Trotsky was born in 1877, the son of a Jewish chemist. In 1890 he was
banished to Siberia for his political activities, but he escaped in the third year of
his exile, and joined Lenin in London. At the outbreak of World War I, Trotsky was
in Paris where he edited a socialist newspaper in Russian. He was expelled from
Paris in 1916 and was for a time in New York. After the March revolution of 1917,
he went to Russia and rejoined Lenin. He was one of the chief supporters of Lenin
in the successful Revolution of November, 1917 in which Kerensky was overthrown.
On the 8th November, 1917 he, with Lenin, seized the reins of the government. He
occupied various important positions as Lenin's close associate and supporter. But,
with the death of Lenin in 1924, Trotsky's influence declined, and Stalin gradually
ousted him from all his posts. In 1927 Trotsky was expelled by Stalin from the
Communist Party, and then exiled from Russia. After his expulsion from Russia,
Trotsky lived in France and several other countries, but in 1937 he settled down in
Mexico, where, on the 20th August, 1940, he was assassinated, presumably by one
of Stalin's agents. Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution is a book of
outstanding value. (In Animal Farm, Trotsky is presented in the guise of the pig,
Snowball).

56
Persons and Places in "Animal Farm"
The majority of the characters in this novel are animals, and the number of
persons (that is, human beings) is very small. The characters may therefore be
considered under two heads: "Persons" and "Animals".
(A) PERSONS, OR HUMAN BEINGS
(1) Mr. Jones
Mr. Jones is the owner of Manor Farm in the English countryside near the town of
Willingdon. He owns a large number of animals who perform the various tasks
connected with the running of his agricultural farm. He is a rather irresponsible
kind of man who drinks heavily and does not pay sufficient attention to the well-
being of his animals. He lives in his farmhouse with his wife, maintaining a number
of men to supervise the working of the farm. (In allegorical terms, Mr. Jones
represents Capitalism).
(2) Mr. Pilkington
He is the owner of a neighbouring farm which is known as Foxwood Farm. In the

beginning he, like the other human beings owning farms, becomes hostile to Manor
Farm which is renamed Animal Farm after Mr. Jones has been driven away by the
animals, but subsequently becomes friendly towards Animal Farm. (In allegorical
terms, he represents Churchill who was the Prime Minister of England at the time
this book was written).
(3) Mr. Frederick
He is the owner of Pinchfield Farm. At first he comes to some sort of

understanding with the leader ruling Animal Farm, but he afterwards invades
Animal Farm and, during the invasion, his men blow up the windmill which the
animals had built with their year-long labour. (Allegorically, he represents Hitler
who, after having signed a No-War Pact with Stalin, had invaded Russia and worked
a great havoc during the invasion, before being defeated by the Russians).

57
(4) Mr. Whymper
He is a solicitor who is engaged by Napoleon of Animal Farm as an intermediary

between himself and the human beings in connection with the trading and
commercial activities of Animal Farm. He does not have much of a role in the story
of the novel.
(B) ANIMALS
(1) Major
Major is the name of an old boar belonging to, and working under, Mr. Jones. It is
he who summons a secret meeting of all the animals of Mr. Jones's farm and
incites them to a rebellion against Mr. Jones on the ground that Mr. Jones has
been exploiting the labour of the animals without even giving them adequate food
to eat. Three days after having delivered his speech to the animals, he dies. But his
exhortation to the animals has influenced them so deeply that very soon they rebel
against their master Mr. Jones and drive him away from the farm. (Major
symbolizes Karl Marx who is regarded as the founder of Communism and whose
ideas led to the Russian Revolution of 1917).
(2) Napoleon
Napoleon is the name of one of the leading pigs on Animal Farm. The pigs are the
cleverest and the most intelligent of all the animals, and Napoleon is among the two
or three most dynamic of the pigs. He soon emerges as one of the leaders of the
animals and, after driving away his rival Snowball from the farm, becomes the sole
ruler of Animal Farm, gradually acquiring absolute powers and becoming a dictator.
(In allegorical terms, Napoleon represents Stalin).
(3) Snowball
He is another pig who comes into prominence by virtue of his superior intelligence
and inventiveness. He differs with Napoleon on almost every issue, thereby
becoming his rival so far as power and authority are concerned. However, he is
driven away from Animal Farm by the fierce dogs who had privately been reared
and trained by Napoleon. (In allegorical terms, Snowball represents Trotsky, the
Russian leader who was expelled from Russia by Stalin).

58
(4) Squealer
He is the third pig who comes into prominence at Animal Farm. His function is to
defend the policies of the administration and to convince the animals that
whatever is being done by the leaders, and especially by Napoleon, is right.
(Squealer symbolizes the propaganda machinery which every dictator employs to
justify his actions and policies. Or, perhaps, Squealer symbolizes the servile
Russian press which invariably supports all governmental actions and policies and
which, in the days of Stalin, supported him and his deeds with the utmost
readiness and diligence).
(5) Boxer
He is a cart-horse who, after the expulsion of Mr. Jones from the farm, becomes a
devoted follower of Napoleon. He is a very hard-working animal and possesses
extraordinary strength. He adopts two mottoes: "I will work harder" and "Napoleon
is always right." He meets a tragic death when Napoleon, forgetting all Boxer's
loyalty and hard work, sells him to a slaughter-house. (Boxer symbolizes the hard-
working Russian proletariat under Stalin).
(6) Clover
Clover, like Boxer, is a cart-horse. But Clover is a female of the species. She has
already given birth to four foals when the story opens. She is very friendly with
Boxer. She perceives with deep regret Napoleon's deviations from the Seven
Commandments which had been formulated immediately after the expulsion of Mr.
Jones from the farm.
(7) Muriel
Muriel is the name of a white goat on Animal Farm.
(8) Benjamin
He is a cynical donkey who hardly ever laughs because he finds nothing to laugh at.
He remains unchanged throughout the story. However, he understands everything
that is going on at the farm, though he never gives expression to his ideas and
feelings.

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(9) Mollie
She is a white mare on the farm. She is a vain animal, fond of wearing red ribbons
in her mane. Soon after the rebellion against Mr. Jones, she defects from Animal
Farm and goes to serve human beings.
(10) Jessie and Bluebell
They are the two bitches on Animal Farm. When they give birth to a number of
puppies, Napoleon takes the puppies away and brings them up privately to suit his
own purposes.
(11) Pincher
Pincher is the name of a dog on Animal Farm.
(12) Moses
Moses is the name of a tame raven who lived at the farm as long as Mr. Jones was
there but who leaves when Mr. Jones is driven away from the farm. He had been a
tale-bearer and a spy serving Mr. Jones who fed him well in return. He used to
keep talking about a paradise called Sugarcandy Mountain to which all the animals
would, according to him, go after their deaths. After several years of absence,
Moses returns to Animal Farm and again begins to talk to the animals about
Sugarcandy Mountain. (In allegorical terms, Moses represents the Roman Catholic
Church).
Note. In addition to the above-named animals, there are a large number of pigs,
sheep, pigeons, dogs, some cows, a large brood of ducklings, and a cat living on the
farm. The sheep symbolize blind followers or yes-men. The pigeons are the secret
agents who spread Communist propaganda in non-Communist countries. The dogs
are the secret police who use threats and force against the supposed opponents of
the Communist regime in Russia.
(C) PLACES
(1) Manor Farm
Manor Farm is the name of an agricultural-and-poultry farm owned by Mr. Jones.

All the events of the story take place at Manor Farm—in the barn, in the
farmhouse, in the farm buildings, in the fields, in the pasture, etc. The whole
drama is enacted on this farm which, after the expulsion of Mr. Jones, is given the

60
name of "Animal Farm" but which is again called "Manor Farm" when Napoleon has
established his undisputed dictatorship over the Manor Farm symbolizes Russia).
(2) Foxwood Farm
This farm is situated in the neighborhood of Animal Farm and is owned by a man
called Mr. Pilkington. Foxwood Farm is not the scene of any of the happenings in
the story and we are never taken to this farm. (In allegorical terms, Foxwood
Farm seems to represent Britain, and its owner Mr. Pilkington then represents
Churchill).
(3) Pinchfield Farm
This is another farm situated in the neighborhood of Animal Farm. None of the
incidents of the story takes place there. This farm is owned by a man called Mr.
Frederick. (Mr. Frederick represents Hitler, and Pinchfield Farm represents
Germany under Hitler. The name “Pinchfield" is significant because "to pinch"
means “to steal”; and Hitler was a usurper who annexed several countries of
Europe).
“Animal Farm”: A Synopsis
Orwell's Thesis in This Novel
Animal Farm is a beast fable with an allegorical purpose. Orwell's object in writing
this book was to expose the reality of the Communist regime under Stalin. Orwell
wanted to convey through this animal fable his view that the Russian Revolution of
1917 by which the Bolsheviks had come to power and which heralded a golden age
for the Russian people was betrayed by Stalin and his colleagues.
In course of time, all the aims and ideals of the Russian Revolution were either
forsaken or changed beyond recognition to suit the purposes of the Communist
leaders, and especially of Stalin. After driving out Trotsky from Russia by his
machinations, Stalin became a ruthless dictator who in course of time ordered
trials of the suspected opponents of his regime and, on the basis of fake evidence
and forced confessions, put them all to death. Most of the happenings in Russia
between 1917 and 1943 are depicted in Orwell's novel in a disguised form. While

61
Animal Farm is a sharp and scathing satire on Stalin's betrayal of the Russian
Revolution, it is also, additionally, a satire on all revolutions Orwell's thesis it the
book is that in course of time those, who led the revolution with their ideals of
freedom, equality, and comradeship, forsake these ideals and themselves become
ruthless dictators. Once they comes into power, the revolutionaries shelve the
ideals with which they started and become power-hungry and selfish, thus
betraying the common people with whose support they had seized power. Power
corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This famous maxim sums up the
message which Orwell wishes to convey through his book. The following is the
sequence of events in the novel:
Chapter I. An old boar by the name of Major calls a secret meeting of all the
animals working on Manor Farm owned by Mr. Jones and instigates them to rebel
against their human master. Old Major says that the animals are being exploited by
Mr. Jones and that therefore they should rise in revolt against him to gain their
freedom and their right to get sufficient food. According to Old Major, man is the
enemy of all the animals. Old Major then gives to the animals a few guidelines for
their conduct. The meeting ends with the singing of a song called "Beasts of
England", a song in golden future for the animals is visualized. (Old Major
represents Karl Marx, the German philosopher and economist who had declared
that the working classes were exploited by the capitalists and that only by taking
recourse to revolutionary methods could they hope to achieve what was due to
them).
Chapter II. Three nights later Old Major dies. The pigs, who are the most
intelligent and the cleverest of all the animals, now undertake the duty of guiding
all the other animals. Pre-eminent among the pigs are two young boars named
Snowball and Napoleon. These two are ably and skilfully assisted by a third pig
named squealer who acts as a propagandist for them. A rebellion against Mr. Jones
takes place, and the animals are able to drive away Mr. Jones from the farm. The
animals now become the masters of the farm which is renamed "Animal Farm".
Snowball and Napoleon formulate the Seven Commandments for the guidance of all
animals. The Seven Commandments read as follows:
1. Whatever goes on two legs is an enemy.
2 Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

62
3 No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.
Chapter III. The animals work hard on their farm and reap a big harvest of hay.
The pigs direct and supervise the work of all the other animals. But a rivalry now
begins between the two leading pigs namely Napoleon and Snowball. The two
leaders differ on almost every issue. The Seven Commandments are reduced to a
single maxim namely: "Four legs good, two legs bad." The sheep promptly learn this
maxim by heart. When the two bitches on the farm, namely Jessie and Bluebell,
give birth to nine puppies, Napoleon takes the puppies away from their mothers
saying that he would personally make himself responsible for their upbringing and
education. Another development here is that the apples and milk are reserved
exclusively for the consumption of the pigs, without any share being given to the
other animals. The pigs have already begun to enjoy a preferential treatment.
Chapter IV. Mr. Jones and his men invade Animal Farm in order to regain
possession of it. Although Mr. Jones comes armed with a gun, the animals are able
to repulse the attack by the human beings. Snowball distinguishes himself in this
battle against the human beings by his clever strategy and by fighting bravely and
suffering a few wounds on his back. Boxer, a cart-horse, also distinguishes himself
in the battle by his heoric fighting. The battle is named by the animals the "Battle
of the Cowshed". Military decorations and medals are instituted; and both Snowball
and Boxer receive a medal each as their reward for their brave fighting.
Chapter V. The disagreements between Snowball and Napoleon increase. They

especially differ over the issue of the building of a windmill proposed by Snowball.
Snowball wants to build the windmill in order to generate electricity for the farm;
but Napoleon is not interested in this project. It seems that Snowball will win the
majority vote at the meeting of the animals. Napoleon, who had secretly been
rearing the puppies of which he had taken charge, now thinks of a device to drive
Snowball away from the farm and himself to become the sole leader at the farm.
So, when the meeting takes place, Napoleon gives a signal to his puppies, which in

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course of time have grown into fierce dogs. The dogs attack Snowball who saves
himself with great difficulty and then takes to his heels. Snowball is chased by the
fierce dogs till he crosses the boundary of Animal Farm. Snowball is never seen
after this incident, and Napoleon becomes the sole leader. Napoleon now decides to
implement the project to build the windmill even though he had originally been
opposing it. (Napoleon represents Stalin while Snowball represents Trotsky.
Napoleon's action in driving away Snowball from Animal Farm symbolizes Stalin's
action in expelling Trotsky from Russia. After being expelled from Russia, Trotsky
was never able to return to his home-land and had to spend the rest of his life
abroad, in several countries one after the other).
Chapter VI. Napoleon now begins to deviate from the Seven Commandments. He
establishes commercial and trading relations with human beings through a solicitor
by the name of Mr. Whymper. Some of the animals disapprove of Napoleon's
action, but Squealer justifies Napoleon's new policies and tries to convince the
animals that there is nothing wrong in what Napoleon is doing. The pigs now start
living in Mr. Jones's farmhouse and sleeping in the beds in which human beings used
to sleep. This too is against the Seven Commandments. But Squealer justifies this
action also on the ground that the pigs are the brain-workers on the farm and that
they need rest and quiet for their work. The windmill is completed, but it is
brought down by a furious winter gale. Napoleon gives out that the windmill has
been destroyed by Snowball who had come to the farm under cover of darkness
and taken this destructive step to harm the interests of animals. (Stalin had
continued his malicious propaganda against Trotsky even after Trotsky had gone
into exile).
Chapter VII. The rebuilding of the windmill is now undertaken by the animals under
Napoleon's orders. There is a food shortage on Animal Farm, and the rations of the
animals, excepting the pigs and the dogs, are reduced. The hens revolt against an
unjust order of Napoleon's, but are compelled to surrender when Napoleon orders
that their rations should be stopped completely. All the difficulties which are now
faced by the animals are attributed by Napoleon and Squealer to Snowball even
though Snowball is nowhere in the picture. Squealer gives a distorted
interpretation of the past happenings. Napoleon acts in a most cruel and savage
manner by ordering his fierce dogs to kill all those animals (including four pigs) who
are suspected of having been in league with Snowball. In this way Napoleon gets rid
of all those whom he suspects of being disloyal to him. However, before ordering

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the executions of these animals, he extorts confessions of guilt from them. (This
incident in the story corresponds to the Moscow Trials and the purges carried out
under the orders of Stalin during the years 1936-38).
Chapter VIII. The Sixth Commandment forbidding any animal to kill to any other
animal is now altered to suit Napoleon's purpose. The animals are now being fed no
better than they were in Mr. Jones's time, though the pigs and the dogs are being
fed properly and are receiving a preferential treatment in every respect. Squealer
gives out inflated figures of food production. More allegations are made against
Snowball. New honours and dignities are conferred upon Napoleon through his own
manoeuvring. Napoleon begins to negotiate with two neighbouring farmers by the
names of Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick, and arrives at some sort of
understanding with Mr. Frederick. After a few days, however, Mr. Frederick and
his men invade Animal Farm and blow up the windmill with explosives. However, the
animals fight against the human invaders with a great determination and are able
to drive them away from their farm. The animals then celebrate their victory, even
though they have won the victory at a heavy cost. The pigs now start drinking
whisky, and Napoleon decides to sow more barley in the fields because he would
like to set up a brewery to make beer for the pigs. The pigs and, of course the
dogs too, have now become established as a privileged class and a superior caste,
and the ideal of equality is completely forgotten.
Chapter IX. The rebuilding of the windmill is commenced immediately after the end
of the victory celebrations. Life for the animals has now become very hard,
especially because of food shortage and another reduction in the rations of all
except those of the pigs and the dogs. 'Squealer explains that a complete equality
in rations is contrary to the principles of Animalism. Napoleon orders what he calls
"Spontaneous Demonstrations" by the animals to show their support for him and
his policies. Animal Farm is proclaimed a Republic, and Napoleon is elected its
President. Snowball is further defamed and maligned. Moses, the raven, returns to
Animal Farm after an absence of several years. He tells the animals the same old
stories about Sugarcandy Mountain and the happiness which awaits the animals
there after their deaths. Boxer is over-working himself at the rebuilding of the
windmill. One day, while dragging a heavy boulder towards the site of the windmill,
he slips and falls down. Boxer sustains a serious injury. Napoleon, on coming to know
of the mishap, says that he would send Boxer to a veterinary hospital in Willingdon
for expert treatment. A van comes to take Boxer away. But the animals discover,

65
to their dismay, that Boxer is not being taken to the veterinary hospital but has
been sold to a knacker and is being removed to the slaughter-house to be
slaughtered. Afterwards Squealer tells a lie to the animals, saying that Boxer has
died at the veterinary hospital and that, while dying, Boxer had said: "Long live
Comrade Napoleon! Napoleon is always right." The pigs have now started drinking
whisky regularly.
Chapter X. Years pass. Many of the animals are dead and many others are born.
Some more animals, including a couple of horses, are bought from outside. The
windmill has been completed but it does not generate electricity. The farm has
become richer without, however, the animals becoming richer in any sense, except,
of course, the pigs and the dogs who are leading a very comfortable life. All the
Seven Commandments are now erased from the wall of the barn where they had
been inscribed, and now there is only one Commandment left, and even this
Commandment is not the same as it used to be. This Commandment now reads as
follows: "All Animals Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others."
The pigs have now made it a regular habit to walk on two legs. They all carry whips
in their trotters while supervising the work of the farm. They have even started
wearing Mr. Jones's clothes, and Napoleon has even started smoking a pipe. One
day Napoleon invites a delegation of the human owners of the neighbouring farms
to visit and inspect Animal Farm. The delegation is headed by Mr. Pilkington of
Foxwood Farm. At the feast which is held to entertain the guests, Mr. Pilkington
makes a speech emphasizing the friendly relations which now exist between Animal
Farm and its neighbours. Mr. Pilkington then proposes a toast to the prosperity of
Animal Farm. Napoleon replies to the toast, expressing his happiness at the fact
that there are now no longer any misunderstandings between Animal Farm and its
neighbours. Animal Farm, says Napoleon, is owned by the pigs jointly. Napoleon now
also announces that the custom of the animals addressing one another as
"Comrade" has been abolished. The sign of the hoof and horn from the flag of
Animal Farm has also now been removed. Furthermore, says Napoleon, the original
name "Manor Farm" has been restored because that was the correct name of this
farm. The animals, who have been overhearing the speeches and watching what has
been going on, feel very depressed and disappointed by the complete reversal in
the policies of Animal Farm. Essentially, Animal Farm or Manor Farm is now being
ruled by a dictator and a privileged class in a ruthless manner just as it used to be
ruled in the days of Mr. Jones. Totalitarianism has been re-established at this

66
farm. The guests and the hosts now be in to play cards, but the atmosphere of
harmony is soon disturbed when Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington play an ace of spades
each at the same time showing thereby that each has tried to cheat the other. A
quarrel now starts between the visiting human farmers and the pigs of Animal Farm
(or Manor Farm). It now seems that the faces of the pigs have undergone a
complete change and that there is no difference at all between the appearance of
the pigs and that of the human beings. Indeed, it becomes impossible to
differentiate the pigs from the human beings now. (This identification between the
pigs and the human beings means that the pigs have now gone back to the ways of
Mr. Jones and adopted Mr. Jones's authoritarian or dictatorical ways of
administering the farm).
"Animal Farm": A Critical Appreciation
A Temporary Meaning and a Universal Meaning
Animal Farm was Orwell's most successful attempt to unify his political thought
and his artistic purpose. Here he suggests both a temporary or historical meaning
and a more general or universal one. Through the use of the beast fable he goes
beyond a critique of Russian Communism and its subsequent growth and decay to
describe human society and revolutionary psychology. It is important to note that
the pigs, Old Major, Snowball, and Napoleon parallel Marx, Trotsky, and Stalin
respectively, and that Animal Farm's enemies, Pinchfied and Foxwood, represent
the forces of Fascism and Capitalism. (Or, perhaps, these two farms represent
Hitler's Germany and Churchill's Britain respectively). It is of more value, however,
to see Orwell's final purpose. After more than two hundred years, Swift's
Gulliver's Travels can be enjoyed without a detailed knowledge of eighteenth-
century politics. Orwell's allusions to contemporary politics in Animal Farm will also
not draw as much of the future reader's attention as the deeper issues.
The Reason for the Disintegration of Animals' Society
An assertion, that Animal Farm demonstrates Orwell's complete disillusionment

concerning the efficacy of revolution and, later, that Nineteen Eighty-Four proves
his belief in the inevitability of a slave-world, is founded on a misreading of these

67
two books and on a failure to see them in relationship to his other writings. If the
satire in Animal Farm is read closely, it becomes clear that animals' society
disintegrates, not because it springs from revolution, but because it lacks an
established political tradition. When moral direction fails to come from the people,
authority becomes absolute power which corrupts absolutely. This situation on the
farm allows Napoleon to change the Commandments and the regulations when it
suits him. The animals do not have a "racial" memory, nor an idea of justice and
equality, to fall back on. Consequently, when at last the single Commandment ("All
animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others") goes up on the
barn, only Benjamin the donkey appears perturbed because it is only he who
remembers what the conditions were originally and at the beginning of the
revolution. The other animals accept the new rule as a matter of course, because
they do not know what equality is in the first place and cannot recall any other
time vividly enough to assess their present position.
Certain Kinds of Revolutions, Fated to
Propagate Enslavement
Since the animals have no history, it can be written at will. And since they have no
collective conscience, truth can be manipulated or created to meet the situation.
Therefore Snowball's heroism at the Battle of the Cowshed can later be defined
as cowardice without causing any social disturbance. These same conditions appear
fully developed in Nineteen Eighty-Four with, however, two important differences.
At Animal Farm no one challenges the pigs' authority, while in Oceania, Winston
Smith sees the truth—at least for a moment; and, furthermore, the proles
continue to survive with an inherent sense of morality and a vague memory of the
past. Certain kinds of revolutions, then, according to Orwell are fated to propagate
enslavement rather than to bring about freedom and to take on the appearance of
that which they sought to eliminate. Revolution, as such, is not evil or worthless,
but most revolutions lead ultimately to dictatorship though they had started with
an overthrow of the dictatorship which had previously been in existence and which
had been persecuting and exploiting the people.
A Clever Satire
There is plenty in the U.S.S.R. to satirize, and Orwell does it well. How deftly the
fairy story of the animals who, in anticipation of freedom and plenty, revolt against

68
the tyrannical farmer, turns into a rollicking caricature of the Russian Revolution!
Orwell's shafts strike home. We read of the sheep who drown discussion by the
bleating of slogans; we notice, with amusement, the gradual change of Soviet
doctrine under the pretence that it is no change and then that the original
doctrine was erroneous. The best thing in Orwell's story is the picture of the
puzzled animals examining the original principles of the Revolution, and finding
them altered. "All animals are equal", said the slogan; to which is added: "but some
animals are more equal than others." The story of the loyal horse who worked until
his lungs burst is told with a genuine pathos: it represents a true and hateful
aspect of every revolutionary struggle. Particularly noteworthy is the character of
the donkey Benjamin who says little but is always sure that the more the things
change the more they will be the same, and that men will always be oppressed and
exploited whether they have revolutions and high ideals or not.
A Devastating Attack on Stalin and his Betrayal of
the Russian Revolution
Animal Farm is truly a fairy story told by a great lover, of liberty and a great lover
of animals. The farm is real; the animals are moving. At the same time it is a
devastating attack on Stalin and his betrayal of the Russian Revolution. The
parallel between the animals' revolution and the Russian Revolution is skilfully
worked out, perhaps the most felicitous moment being when the animal saboteurs
are executed for some of the very crimes of the Russian trials, such as the sheep
who confessed to having urinated in the drinking pool, or the goose which kept back
six ears of corn and ate them in the night. The fairy tale ends with the complete
victory of Napoleon and the pigs who rule Animal Farm with a worse tyranny and a
far greater efficiency than its late human owner, Mr. Jones.
An Interesting Plot, with Several Dramatic Situations; Pathos; Humour
Animal Farm has a very interesting plot. The story of the animals, who revolted
against their human master and established a government of their own, would
appeal primarily to children; but the story acquires an interest for the adult mind
also when, after some time, it is realized by the reader that there is a deeper
meaning at the bottom and that the story deals with the establishment by the
Russian revolutionaries of a government aiming at equality and comradeship soon
developing into totalitarianism. Thus Animal Farm may be perused at two levels; at

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the level of a children's story and at the level of an allegory for mature people who
cannot miss the message that Orwell wishes to convey through it. There are a
number of dramatic situations in the story, such as the "Battle of the Cowshed"
and the "Battle of the Windmill". There is plenty of pathos in the story too. Two
situations stand out in this respect: one is the massacre of the innocent animals
who are compelled by the threat of torture to confess that they had been working
secretly in collusion with Snowball against the interests of Animal Farm; and the
other is the heart-rending episode of Boxer's death. But there is plenty of humour
too in the novel. In fact, a vein of humour runs through most of the story, the
humour becoming almost uproarious at times as, for instance, when it is found that
Mr. Frederick has cheated Napoleon by giving him forged currency notes and,
again, when Mr. Pilkington and Napoleon make their speeches and when, soon
afterwards, they play an ace of spades each at the same time in the course of
their game of cards.
Characterization
The novel is very successful from the point of view of characterization also. It is
true that Orwell was not a successful delineator of human character in his novels.
But the major characters in this novel are not human beings. The major characters
here are animals and, in portraying them, Orwell has achieved a measure of success
which he had never achieved in delineating human beings. In the novels written
before Animal Farm, his character-portrayal had been superficial and therefore
unsatisfactory. Here, however, Orwell has been able to individualize the various
animals so that we become thoroughly acquainted with each of them and are able to
differentiate one from the other. The characters of the various animals, as drawn
by Orwell, are perfectly convincing. This fact has been recognized by almost every
critic. Napoleon, Snowball, Squealer, and Boxer are unforgettable characters about
whose reality we feel no doubt at all. Even Muriel the goat, Benjamin the donkey,
and Mollie the mare have, each of them, an identity of their own, not to speak of
Moses the raven and Clover the motherly mare. They have all been made truly
convincing.
Structural Compactness
Animal Farm is an outstanding novel so far as its plot-construction and structure

are concerned. Orwell here shows himself to be an excellent craftsman. The plot is
well-knit and produces a concentrated effect because there are no side interests

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or sub-plots in the novel. The structure of the novel is extremely compact, and is
characterized by an extreme economy. The simplicity of the style is another merit
of the book. Orwell's style here may be compared to a window pane. The satire
becomes much more pointed and effective because of the qualities of compactness,
brevity, and simplicity.
A Critical Analysis of "Animal Farm"
Rhetoric and the Technique of Repetition
The satire in Animal Farm begins with the rhetoric of Major's first speech to the
animals in Chapter 1. The primary technique of this rhetoric is an argument from
passively accepted grounds which allows the speaker to establish a familiarity with
his audience from false premises.
Although Major appears to offer free choices to his audience, he is, in fact, in
complete control. He pretends to be detached and objective by telling his listeners
that he would soon die, but by this method he hides the control which he is
acquiring upon them through the repetitions of his rhetoric. The technique of
repetition is found in the several questions which he puts to his audience, and then
providing the answers himself. Thus he asks: "What is the nature of this life of
ours?", "Why then do we continue in this miserable conditions?", "What then must
we do?" The acceptance of these questions is further controlled by his tight,
complete answers which do not encourage discussion and varied response. There is
also the repetition of phrases and of key words which establish a personal
vocabulary. Another technique employed is that, from the beginning, the animals
are addressed as "comrades", while man is set up as the enemy. The animals are
presented through personalized references which create sympathy, but man is
referred to as one unit representing a type of evil and cruel enemy.
Manipulation of Votes on an Initial Problem
Having controlled the process of his background speech, Major then also controls
the events which follow. A vote is needed on whether wild animals like rats should
be included in the community of animals. Major skilfully manipulates the votes, by
bracketing the rats with rabbits and thus weakening the negative connotations of

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the rats, and also by asking: "Are rats comrades?" instead of asking: "Are rats
enemies?" The weight of the word "comrades" helps to turn the argument in the
favour of the rats, and they are accepted as comrades. This incident is also
important from the strategic point of view because it involves all the animals in the
act of collective voting and strengthens the idea that they all form a compact unit.
Major's Dream, a Utopian Vision of the
Past and the Future
When Major comes to the summarizing of his directions, he says "I merely repeat"
as if he is referring back to a previously discussed and agreed principle. The
phrasing of the directions is entirely in terms of "duty", of "never faltering", of
allowing no argument to lead astray. The account of his dream which follows, and
the rendition of the song ("Beasts of England") confirm the stance. His dream is a
Utopian vision of the past to be transferred to the future. It is carried by images
of plenty, and the "golden future time" of the song. The song itself is not there for
education or illumination, but as a unifying device, depending upon the ability of the
members to pick up the tune quickly without thinking about the words. Although
Major says that "no animal must ever tyrannize over his own kind," his speech
already has in it the seeds of tyranny in it because the manner of his speaking
discourages participation and discussion, because the set of directions announced
by him show a narrow view, and because he uses the device of the song which
serves as an unthinking populist stimulation.
The Emergence of Three Pigs as Leaders
Major's speech also lays the foundations for the political developments which
follow. The three pigs who take up and apply his ideas are defined by their ability
to handle language. Napoleon is “not much of a talker" in contrast to Snowball who
is "quicker in speech and more inventive". The only porker of significance is
Squealer who is a brilliant talker and who is reported as having the capacity to turn
black into white by his arguments. Snowball is depicted as the one who makes the
rules and exercises control through talking and writing. Napoleon is depicted as the
one who exercises control by manipulating the physical aspects of the farm, the
produce, and its consumption. After the death of Major, the three leading pigs
develop the negative strategies which are already present, and they turn Major's
directions into a complete system of thought legitimized by the word "Animalism".

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By doing so, they acquire a power which is seen in the way they run the meetings of
the animals. Organization is left to them because "naturally” it should be and
because they are "generally recognized" as the cleverest. They exploit their
position by failing to answer the questions of other animals, and dismissing the
questions on the ground that they are "contrary to the spirit of Animalism". The
key-reaction to their techniques is that of the horses, Boxer and Clover, who "had
great difficulty thinking anything out for themselves, but having once accepted
the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything they were told, and passed it
on to the other animals in simple arguments." Most important is the fact that the
pigs can read and write. This is the key to their intelligence. After the Rebellion,
we get a clue to the significance which they attach to their ability, because the
first thing they do is to change the name of Manor Farm to "Animal Farm", thus
making use of the magic which names often have. The second thing they do is to
reduce the directions of the late Major to "Seven Commandments of unalterable
law". Realizing that the directions can never be absolute unless treated as laws,
they write them down. In the process they reduce the directions, leaving out
certain points such as the injunction that animals are not to tyrannize over each
other.
Linguistic Ability, a Great Asset
The domination by the pigs increases as the life at the farm moves through the
first few months of animal government. At the same time, it is again emphasized
that their power proceeds from their ability to use language; and the direction of
that power is toward reducing the scope of life instead of expanding it. Once more,
it is Snowball and Napoleon who participate the most in the debates and who
therefore control the meetings. But the difference between the methods of the
two leaders is between Snowball's superior linguistic ability and Napoleon's
physical control. Snowball concerns himself with committees and education.
However, he caters to the desire of the animals not to think, thus making it easier
for them simply to memorize than really to learn. Of course, this itself is partly a
result of the system which discourages active participation in debate and
discussion. The pigs have no difficulty in reading and writing. The dogs, as well as
the donkeys (like Benjamin) and the goat Muriel too, have not much difficulty. But
the dogs are slavish creatures, only interested in reading the Commandments, and
the donkey Benjamin says that there is "nothing worth reading". Clover is
intelligent but not intelligent enough to "put words together"; while Boxer can

73
never remember more than four letters of the alphabet at a time, even though he
takes great pleasure in them. The vain mare, Mollie, learns only her own name, and
none of the other animals can go beyond the letter A. These varying abilities in
reading and writing determine the status of the various animals. At the top, the
better one is able to read, the cleverer one is thought to be, and the less work one
has to do. At the bottom, the majority of illiterate of animals merely accept their
subordinate position and do their duties. In the centre are the intelligent but not
completely literate animals, like Boxer and Clover, who cannot read and therefore
must work, but who are yet clever enough to realize that they must actively
participate and perform a larger number of duties than the others.
"Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad"
For those who have the minimum intelligence, Snowball reduces the Seven
Commandments to a single maxim which is "Four legs good, two legs bad". This
maxim is quickly learnt by the sheep who then keep repeating it most of the time.
When the birds object that this criterion will exclude them because they have only
two legs, Snowball explains that the two wings of a bird will also count as legs. The
birds accept this explanation even though they do not understand Snowball's long
words. Thus explanation serves a useful purpose, but it is made possible through
linguistic ability. When Napoleon has to justify the pigs' consuming all the milk and
the apples, he sends Squealer with the necessary explanations.
The Expulsion of Snowball from Animal Farm
Upto this point the satire emphasizes the theory that language, written or spoken,
is the key to political power. The other animals have a limited capacity to learn and
use the language, and they cannot therefore discuss the various issues effectively
with the pigs. As the other animals cannot write and as they have imperfect
memories, they cannot verify the original assumptions and decisions from which a
start had been made after the Rebellion against Mr. Jones. If the other animals
did not suffer from these limitations, the pigs could not have acquired a supremacy
at the farm. In Chapter 4 the question arises whether this type of political
situation can last. Once again the key is propaganda by means of language. The
leaders at Animal Farm send out birds to instruct the neighbouring animals in the
elements of a rebellion and in the singing of the song called "Beasts of England".
The song is a unifying point of contact, and it is the one thing that greatly annoys
the farmers at the neighbouring farms. At first the farmers retaliate by laughing

74
and circulating rumours to refute this propaganda, but afterwards they launch a
violent attack on Animal Farm. The attack by the farmers is repulsed, and the
inhabitants of Animal Farm celebrate their victory in a formal manner. They now
adopt a flag; they institute medals for heroism; and they adopt the practice of
firing a gun on important occasions. The political development at Animal Farm is
portrayed most clearly by the manner in which the meetings are now conducted.
The pigs set up a process whereby they make the decisions and the other animals
simply ratify these decisions. However, the consolidation of this process is
interrupted by the incident of the windmill in Chapter 5. Snowball had decided that
building a windmill would enable the animals to modernize the farm and raise their
standard of living, but Napoleon is opposed to the plan, saying that it will come to
nothing. The matter is first raised as a casual example of the differences between
Snowball and Napoleon, but is gradually turned into the main event which leads to
Snowball's expulsion from the farm. During the final debate about whether or not
to build the windmill, Snowball defends his position intellectually and rationally,
while Napoleon replies with a brief statement of disbelief and subsequently
resorts to the use of force. Both leaders, however, exclude the rest of the animals
from any active involvement with their reasoning. Snowball's expulsion from the
farm is one of the climaxes in the novel.
The Pigs Supreme at Animal Farm
After Snowball's departure, there are no more debates at the meetings of the
animals. A committee of pigs is established to take all decisions which are
afterwards communicated to the other animals. Discussion is made impossible
partly because the animals do not have sufficient command of the language to be
able to put their questions in words, and partly because the chanting of slogans
drowns the questions which are asked. This position is further strengthened by the
threat of the use of force against any dissidents. A general submission on the part
of the animals to the supremacy of the pigs and their leaders is now the general
rule at Animal Farm, and this submission leads to an unthinking acceptance of
Boxer's second maxim which is: "Napoleon is always right." (Boxer's first maxim is:
"I will work harder").
The Increasing Power of the Pigs, and the Subservience of the Other Animals
A new seating arrangement is now introduced at the meetings of the animals. The
pigs and the dogs sit on a raised platform, and the rest of the animals sit below.

75
Furthermore, no reasons are given for the decisions which have been taken even
before the meetings are held. A new custom is also introduced: this is the worship
of the skull of the dead Major. All animals have to walk past this skull in a spirit of
reverence once a week. By such methods, the principles of Animalism are elevated
to an unquestioned position. The rhetoric of the leaders has now become a negative
process for inducing passivity and submission; and the next rhetorical development
(which occurs in Chapter 6) relates to the techniques which the pigs employ to stop
all questioning by the other animals. The first example of this is Napoleon's
announcement that Animal Farm will now start trading with human beings. The
decision provokes a protest because some animals remember that Major had
forbidden such trade; but the timid voices of these animals are immediately
silenced by threats of force from the dogs and by the slogan-chanting of the
sheep. Squealer then comes with an explanation which is actually a re-
interpretation of past events. As the past events have not been written down
anywhere, nobody is in a position to give any counter-argument against the position
adopted by Squealer. Similarly, when the pigs take up their abode in Mr. Jones's
house, Squealer is able to convince the other animals that there is nothing wrong
with the step which the pigs have taken. Boxer merely repeats his maxims: "I will
work harder"; and 'Napoleon is always right". Clover and Muriel try to re-read the
Commandments, but because the pigs have already modified the relevant
Commandment to suit their own purpose, Clover accepts the new position.
Squealer's rhetoric consists of placing the animals in a negative perspective and
Napoleon in a positive one. Squealer re-defines words as if the word could
absolutely represent an event, and hence re-definition firmly justifies a new
interpretation. Gradually, with the support of slogan-chanting by the sheep and the
threat of force from the dogs, the animals get used to the explanations and cease
to question. When they are told for the second time that Snowball was a villain and
a traitor, they accept it.
Napoleon, the Leader, No Longer Directly Accessible
to the Animals
The form of government on Animal Farm now depends on an enforced "voluntarism"

superintended by the pigs. Napoleon soon becomes detached even from the rest of
the pigs. His speeches are not now directly made to the animals at the meetings
but are merely reported to them. He is now referred to as "the leader". At the

76
same time, a contact has been established with human beings, and this contact
begins to develop and increase. Animal Farm now acquires a human lawyer (by the
name of Mr. Whymper) to look after its interests. The pigs adopt certain devices
to keep up an appearance of prosperity. One such device is to fill the storage
drums with sand and topping them up with barley to produce an impression of the
availability of large quantities of corn in the store. Such propaganda has to be kept
up not only to deceive the outsiders but also to keep the subordinate animals at
the farm satisfied because, after all, Napoleon's control over the government
depends on his apparent strength and infallibility. Napoleon now appears only on
ceremonial occasions. He stops giving any direct commands. His commands are
communicated to the animals by Squealer. In this way possible disagreements are
avoided, because there is no one with whom the animals can argue directly. At the
same time, Napoleon realizes that whatever discontent the animals might feel
should be provided with some focus. Accordingly, he reconstructs history in such a
way that Snowball is made to appear the cause of whatever weakness or deficiency
the animals find on the farm.
The Hens on Strike; and their Surrender
Each of the three major incidents of Chapter 7 centres on techniques for removing
the discontent of the animals. In each case Napoleon tries to remove himself
farther from direct communication, and the other animals become increasingly
passive. During the first incident the hens are ordered to surrender their eggs for
sale at a time when, in the normal course, they would be hatching the eggs. The
hens go on strike on the ground that Napoleon's order means the murder of the
unborn chickens, and Napoleon cuts off their food supply. By the time the hens
yield, nine of them die. However, it is given out by an unspecified source that the
hens have died not because of hunger but because of disease. As in the case of the
fictional reconstruction of Snowball's history, the new facts come from an
unknown origin. The catch-phrases now are: "It was said" and "It was noticed." The
animals become so used to the process of explaining or rewriting history that they
seldom protest. When they do protest, Squealer is there to persuade them.
The Rewriting of History to Discredit Snowball
The main rewriting of history in this chapter relates to the first battle with the
farmers which had been fought and won by Snowball. As a result of the rewriting
of history, the animals are told that in fact Snowball had not even taken a part in

77
the fighting. This is not easily believed by the animals, and even Boxer has his
doubts. But Squealer describes the historical events of the battle in such a
convincing manner that the animals have to believe the new version. When Boxer is
still unwilling to believe the new facts, Squealer says that Napoleon has said so
"categorically", and this finally satisfies Boxer too.
Killings on the Basis of "Confessions"
The final incident of Chapter 7 is Napoleon's ordering an assembly of the animals

to which he comes wearing medals and decorations, and escorted by fierce dogs.
The meeting has been called so that those animals, who had aided and helped
Snowball in his treachery, may make their confessions and receive punishment. At
the assembly, the animals are persuaded to accept personal guilt and to sacrifice
themselves because of that guilt. Several animals come forward to make their
confessions. Each one of them knows that he will be killed, but each is so convinced
of his guilt that he thinks it necessary to make the confession. It is important that
some of the pigs should be the first to make their confessions. In the eyes of the
other animals this provides Napoleon with a greater degree of impartiality. In a
more subtle way, this emphasizes the point that the only serious threat to
Napoleon comes from his own class. As animal after animal makes his confession, he
is put to death for his guilt. Eventually, there is a pile of dead bodies lying at
Napoleon's feet. It is clear that the animals are in a state of hysteria. The very
excitement of the situation leads a large number of them to make confessions
which, we know, are absolutely false and baseless. (We can guess that the
confessions have been manipulated by Napoleon's agents).
The Realization of Utopia, According to Squealer
The animals, who remain, feel completely confused because such extreme
punishment seems to them to be totally wrong. Boxer blames himself, but Muriel
and Clover try to understand what is happening. One of the reasons for their
puzzlement is that they cannot use the language well. If Clover could have spoken
her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what the animals had
originally aimed at. She therefore merely begins to sing "Beasts of England". But
significantly Squealer arrives just then to inform them that the song has been
banned on Animal Farm because the Rebellion is complete and is now over. Utopia
has been achieved, he says, and a new song had been written to take the place of
the first. The point here is that, whether or not Utopia has been realized, the

78
impression must be created that it has. The new song would be one of the symbols
to prove that Utopia has been realized.
A Further Development in Napoleon's Strategy
Throughout Chapter 8, Napoleon consolidates his position and authority and thus
becomes a dictator. Rumours are circulated about threats to his life; the gun is
fired not only to commemorate the Rebellion and the battle but also Napoleon's
birthday; and an entire mythology is built up around him through proverbial sayings,
verses, and portraits. Now that the immediate problem of controlling the animals
has been solved, he turns to the propaganda needed for the outside world. The
primary concern is now to convince the neighbouring farmers of the legitimacy of
Animal Farm and Napoleon's undisputed power. This external propaganda is
combined with information given to the animals on the farm that there is a threat
to their security from outside. One of the two human farmers, who are competing
to buy timber from Animal Farm, adopts a favourable attitude towards Animal
Farm while the other becomes hostile. The hostility of this farmer provides
Napoleon with a focus to direct the animals' ire against him. But, as with all short-
term propaganda, a continual novelty is necessary to sustain the persuasion and,
after Napoleon is cheated over the timber-deal with forged bank-notes, the
farmers attack the farm and blow up the newly-built windmill. However, there are
hints that Napoleon might even have engineered the attack himself in order to
cover up his own stupidity over the forgery.
Persuasion, Backed up by Force, Leading to
Self-Deception
This second battle is in marked contrast to the first. The animals advance boldly
enough but are easily beaten back until their pride and joy, the windmill, is blown
up. Afterwards, Boxer's simple questions again reveal the disillusionment of the
animals, and this disillusionment has to be dispelled by Squealer's ceremonies,
medals, songs, speeches, and the firing of the gun, to convince them that "after all
they had won a great victory". The incidents leading up to the battle and its
conclusion are enclosed by references to the Commandments which Muriel reads to
Clover. In each case, "there were two words which they had forgotten", with a
resultant change in the meaning. Again, Benjamin, who knows that the
Commandments have simply been amended, abdicates his responsibility and remains

79
uninvolved. It is interesting to note that, as the animals become more detached,

they pick up Squealer's vocabulary of persuasion. After a point, Squealer ceases
even to persuade by misleading proofs. He simply reads off statistics which appear
to show that the lot of the animals now is far better than it was under Mr. Jones;
and the animals believe every word of it. The continued use of negative rhetoric, of
persuasion by omission, deception, and reinterpretation, backed up by force, has
produced s state of constant self-deception.
Racism; Class-privileges; and the Re-writing of History
The next development in the government is the introduction of racism and open
privilege. All the young pigs, who are Napoleon's offspring, receive special
education and are kept apart from the others. The pigs in general are now allowed
to wear ribbons on their tails; and the man-made conveniences on the farm now
become requirements and are no longer regarded as superfluous things. The other
animals are encouraged to take part in songs, speeches, processions, and organized
weekly demonstrations which are described as Spontaneous. This is done to divert
the attention of these animals from the privileges which the pigs have now begun
to enjoy. Next, Animal Farm becomes a republic with Napoleon as the president.
The history of Snowball is rewritten to prove that he had actually been on the side
of Mr. Jones. Moses, the raven, who had left when the Rebellion occurred, returns
with his dreams of Sugarcandy Mountain. Although he is lying when he suggests
that there is a better place beyond the Utopian farm, he yet provides to the
animals another means of escape from their daily life into a world of imagination.
In accepting the vision offered by Moses, the animals use a twisted logic. They
argue that, their lives being laborious, it is only right and just that a better world
for them should exist somewhere else.
Boxer, Sold to a Butcher. A False Account,
Given to the Animals
Then comes another important development. Boxer receives a serious injury. The
pigs decide to send Boxer to a veterinary doctor in a nearby town, and the van
which comes to carry him away arrives in the middle of the day when everyone is
busy working. However, Benjamin sees the van and, for the first time, breaks down.
Benjamin reads the sign on the van and comes to know that it has come from the
slaughter-house. He tells the other animals that Boxer is going to be taken to the

80
butcher to be killed. The animals make an unsuccessful attempt to stop the van.
Squealer gives to the animals a false but plausible account of the circumstances in
which Boxer had died. On the following day Napoleon himself addresses the animals
and he too gives an utterly false version of Boxer's death. The real fact, however,
is that Boxer, the faithful horse which had always worked laboriously in the
service of the community, has been sold to the butcher because he had now
become useless from Napoleon's point of view. The episode shows the total control
which is now exercised by Napoleon.
The New Slogan: "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better"
The final Chapter completes the process. The central event in this Chapter is the
shattering of the last illusion which the animals have, namely that they own the
farm. To prepare the animals for this development, Squealer trains the sheep to
bleat a new slogan which is: "Four legs good, two legs better." The pigs now begin to
walk around on their hind legs, holding whips with their front legs. The other
animals would have uttered protests against this development, but the sheep
interrupt them by shouting slogans. The situation has therefore to be accepted by
the other animals; and afterwards nothing that happens would seem strange to
them. Benjamin now tells Muriel that only one Commandment now remains of the
original seven, and that it has been modified to read is follows: "All animals are
equal but some animals are more equal than others."
Pigs, the Ruling Class. The Original Name of
the Farm, Restored
The fable ends with the speeches of the farmers and pigs in which the aim is not
to inspire a new situation but to summarize an old one. Both the farmers'
representatives and Napoleon proceed by a series of statements which do not even
form an argument. Napoleon announces that the original name of the farm has now
been restored, and that the farm will now again be known as "Manor Farm". The
other animals have been peering in at the window, watching this declaration of
cooperative ownership among the pigs, and hearing themselves described as lower
animals. But the other animals do not protest because they have become hopeless
and have therefore resigned themselves to this development. The final
transformation of the pigs into human beings is not surprising. It comes as
something inevitable in view of the developments which have already taken place.

81
,The Stages of a Revolution as Depicted in "Animal Farm
The Targets of Criticism in "Animal Farm"
As has already been pointed out, Orwell had a great deal of difficulty in getting
Animal Farm published. Most publishers rejected it because they did not want to
publish an anti-Soviet satire in the middle of the war. Yet T. S. Eliot's letter of
rejection on behalf of one of the publishers showed that this was not the only
problem which the book raised. Eliot's complaint was as follows:
The effect is simply one of negation. It ought to excite some sympathy with what
the author wants, as well as sympathy with his objections to something; and the
positive point of view, which I take to be generally Trotskyite, is not convincing.
Eliot also said that Orwell had not been able to confirm any of the standard
western attitudes toward the Soviet Union. Now, Eliot was surely mistaken in
thinking that the positive point of view in this book was Trotskyite. If the positive
point of view had been Trotskyite, Snowball would have been portrayed as a tragic
hero. But Snowball is not the tragic hero in this book. The misunderstanding in this
respect arises largely from the supposition that Animal Farm is wholly an attack on
the Soviet Union. Of course, Orwell did attack the Soviet Union in this book, and
he did so fiercely though wittily. Yet Orwell's purpose in this book is more general.
Orwell was interested in tracing the inevitable stages of any revolution, and so be
shaped his fable accordingly. Once more, it may be admitted that the literal level
of the story is almost exclusively based on Soviet history. Although Russia is the
book's immediate target, Orwell said that the book was intended as a satire on
dictatorship in general. Orwell has been faithful to the details of Soviet history in
this book; yet he did not hesitate to change and modify some of the most
important elements of that history.
The Omission of Lenin from the Story
The most striking of these alterations is the omission of Lenin from the story. Old
Major, the idealist visionary who dies before the revolution lakes place, is most
probably meant to represent Karl Marx, while Napoleon and Snowball represent
Stalin and Trotsky respectively, and the conflict between Napoleon and Snowball is

82
the historical conflict between those two communist leaders. Lenin seems to have
been left out probably because Orwell wants to emphasize the great disparity
between the ideals of the revolution and the reality which is achieved through the
revolution. Lenin's brief period of power must have seemed to Orwell an irrelevant
interlude in the grim drama that was taking place. The successors of Lenin had in
fact begun to transform him into a myth even before he was dead. They tried to
legitimize their power by worship at his shrine. Orwell eliminated the mythical hero
altogether from his story in order to depict the truth of the Russian Revolution
and portray the communist leaders as they actually were.
A Generic as Well as a Topical Satire
Such a radical departure from history was of course Orwell's right as an author
who aimed at constructing a story having a more general significance than what the
Russian Revolution alone meant. He says in a preface to Animal Farm that, although
the various episodes in this story were taken from the actual history of the
Russian Revolution, he had dealt with them schematically and had changed their
chronological order in the interests of the symmetry of the story. But we can see
that these changes were necessary also in order to achieve the purpose which
Orwell had in writing the story. This raises the question of how the topical and
generic levels of the satire in the book are related. The issue can be seen in a
clearer perspective with reference to the case of Swift who was in a way Orwell's
model. When Gulliver's Travels was first published, many took the book as an
essentially partisan political document and a piece of propaganda on behalf of the
opposition party. Yet Swift himself said that his book would be a failure if it could
be understood only in England. Swift made it clear that in his opinion the same
vices and the same follies prevailed everywhere and that the author who wrote only
for one country or one kingdom did not deserve any attention as an author. In the
same way, we may affirm that Animal Farm is concerned both with the Russian
Revolution and the general pattern of revolution itself. As time passes, Animal
Farm would be more and more appreciated as a generic rather than as a topical
satire.

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The Successive Stages of a Revolution as

Depicted By Orwell
Orwell wrote Animal Farm in the form of a fable partly because he wanted to give
a permanent mythic life to the pattern of historical events and because he wanted
to emphasize that he was dealing not with chance events but with typical ones. He
was interested in depicting a paradigmatic social revolution. The pattern which
emerges from this book is meant to apply not only to the Russian Revolution but
also to the Spanish Civil War and to the French Revolution. (It is significant that
the main character has been given the name of Napoleon). Orwell wishes to convey
to us that revolutions always go through several predictable stages. A revolution
begins with great idealistic fervour and popular support. It is energized by golden
expectations of justice and equality. The period immediately following a successful
revolution is the stage of Paradise. There is a general sense of triumphant
achievement. There is a general feeling that an idealistic vision has been translated
into an actual reality. The spirit of brotherhood, fellow-feeling, and equality is
everywhere apparent. Old laws and institutions are abolished and replaced by a
general concern for the common good. The State has, for the time being, lost its
importance. But slowly the feeling of freedom gives way to the sense of necessity,
and to bondage. Improvised organization is replaced by rigid institutions. Equality
gives way to special privileges for certain people. The next stage is the emergence
of a new class of persons who, because of their superior skill and their lust for
power, assume command and re-create the class-structure. The power of this new
class of persons is first universally accepted, but gradually this power has to be
asserted against any possible resistance or opposition, and it is asserted by means
of threats and terror. As more time passes, the past is forgotten or is deliberately
removed from the minds and memories of the people. The new leadership takes on
all the characteristics of the old, pre-revolutionary, leadership, while the people at
large return to a state of servitude. This transition is gradual, and it is constantly
presented by the leaders as something historically inevitable or as something
necessary to counter any possible conspiracy or any possible danger from a foreign
power. All sorts of excuses are invented by the leaders to explain the divergence
from the original ideal. The people at large begin to be exploited partly because of
their stupidity, and partly because, having no taste for power, they are victimized
by the power-hungry leaders. In every new society, some persons will rise above

84
their fellows and assume the available positions of authority. When their power and
privileges have been consolidated, they will fight to keep them. The only surviving
sign of the revolution will then be its rhetoric and its history (which is now altered
to suit the convenience and the purposes of the leaders). Equality and justice will
then fade away, and the State becomes supreme.
T.S. Eliot's Objection
T. S. Eliot objected that the effect of Animal Farm was simply one of negation and
that the book failed to excite any sympathy with what the author wanted. In reply
to this objection, it may be said that great satire has often been written out of
the despairing sense that what the author wants may be unattainable. If Orwell
has at all any positive point of view in writing this book, it is the hope that the
socialists would be able to face the hard truths which he presents rather than
continue to accept the various consoling illusions which had been created to explain
the failures of the Communist regime.
A Moralist's Exposure of the State of Affairs in Russia
Realism was not Orwell's only aim in writing Animal Farm. Orwell is also finally a
moralist. The following lines from Orwell's essay on Dickens are significant in this
connection:
Progress is not an illusion; it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.

There is always a new tyrant waiting to take over from the old—generally not quite
so bad, but still a tyrant. Consequently two view-points are always tenable. The one,
how can you improve human nature until you have changed the system? The other,
what is the use of changing the system before you have improved human nature?
They appeal to different individuals, and they probably show a tendency to
alternate at any point of time.
Orwell also says in the same essay that most revolutionaries are potential Tories
becayse they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of
society. Once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any
other. It is at this moment—when a given revolution has more to preserve than to
transform—that the moralist can come forward and expose the state of affairs.
When Orwell wrote Animal Farm, he had begun to feel that Soviet society had
reached this stage, even though many people in Soviet Russia still saw the
revolution only in its earlier, triumphant phase.

85
Orwell’s Opposition to Totalitarianism
Early Thinking about Totalitarianism
Orwell's extensive reading and experience had prepared him, for the rise of
totalitarianism in the world and the uses that the dictators would make of their
power. The Italian example had been there under Mussolini since 1919. In the
1930's, however, the Soviet Union and Germans began to develop in dangerous ways
which reminded Orwell of the hierarchical absolutism of the Roman Catholic
Church.
He noted particularly their pyramidal structure and the emergence of a new ruling
caste to direct it. Such political systems, he thought, might become permanent and
universal. He believed that the attempt to establish the dictatorship of the
proletariat would end in a rule by a select class of people, enforcing their will
through terrorism. The Russian Communists had thus, in Orwell's view, developed
into a permanent ruling caste or oligarchy. A caste-system joined to a collectivist
economy was what he also saw taking shape in Germany. Thus he found that the two
regimes (Communism, in Soviet Russia, and Nazism in Germany), having started
from opposite ends, had rapidly evolved towards the same system—a form of
oligarchical collectivism. The phrase "oligarchical collectivism" was first used by
Orwell for these two totalitarian States in 1940. Thus eight years before the
publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell had summarized the structure of the
totalitarian State as if later appeared in his novel. It is noteworthy that the book
written by Goldstein in this novel is called "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical
Collectivism". Several causes sharpened Orwell conception of what the totalitarian
State might be like. The worst possibility he imagined was that the great powers
would arm themselves with atomic weapons which they would be afraid of using. In
an article which he wrote in 1947 he thus summed up the power-structure that was
to appear in 1984: "It would mean the division of the world among two or three
vast super-States, unable to conquer one another and unable to be overthrown by
any internal rebellion. In all probability their structure would be hierarchic with a
semi-divine caste at the top and outright slavery at the bottom." Such a slave
State, Orwell had written, had every chance of becoming permanent. As early as
1939 Orwell had felt that men's minds might be so manipulated as to guarantee

86
their total submission for all time. He had then written: "The terrifying thing
about modern dictatorships is that they are something entirely unprecedented.
Their end cannot be foreseen. In the past every tyranny was sooner or later
overthrown, or at least resisted because of human nature which as a matter of
course desired liberty. But we cannot be at all certain that human nature is
constant. It may be possible to produce a breed of men who do not wish for
liberty."
Comparison with the Roman Catholic Church
It would not be wrong to say that Orwell had the Roman Catholic Church firmly in
his mind when he depicted the totalitarian State in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The
Roman Catholic Church can claim something like permanence because it is an
institution which is centuries old. Orwell had a dislike for the Roman Catholic
Church because of its despotic character. The influence of the Roman Catholic
Church, he believed, had always been against freedom of thought and speech,
against human equality and against any form of society wanting to promote earthly
happiness. It is for this reason that we find a great resemblance between the
Catholic Church and Orwell's picture of the totalitarian State in Animal Farm as
well as in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Points of Close Resemblance
The Roman Catholic Church is organized in the shape of a pyramid. At the top is a
leader who is believed to derive his powers directly from God. Beneath that leader
is the class of intellectuals and bureaucrats arranged in a hierarchy. Further down
the pyramid are the large numbers of those who execute the church policy: they
are the teachers, the priests, and the nuns. The rest of the structure is occupied
by the multitudes of followers who obey the orders and instructions which they
receive from above. This structure of the Catholic Church has lasted a long time
and may continue indefinitely. Orwell felt that the ruling class in the Soviet Union
would likewise continue unaltered from generation to generation. There are other
points of resemblance too. The Catholic Church has always forbidden dissent
and persecuted heretics. (Heretics are those who oppose established religious
or political ideas). Orwell believed that the Catholic Church repressed and
distorted the sexual instinct. In Nineteen Eighty-Four we observe a close parallel
between the Catholic Church and the political system of which Winston finds
himself a slave and against which he rebels. O'Brien, for example, calls Julia's

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torture and confession a classic case of conversion. Winston's chat with O'Brien is
solemnized by the drinking of wine. (In the Roman Catholic Church drinking wine in
the course of certain ceremonies is a sacred ritual). Then there is that woman
who at the end of the "Two Minutes Hate Programme”, goes into a sort of religious
ecstasy when she sees the portrait of Big Brother. Next, the questions asked by
O'Brien in his interrogation of Winston are called "a sort of catechism". When
O'Brien recruits Winston for service in the Brotherhood, he says to him: "Our
only true life is in the future." Here O'Brien speaks as if he were promising
Winston salvation in another world. After Winston has been tortured, and his
belief in Big Brother restored, he is back in the Ministry of Love, "with
everything forgiven, his soul white as snow". The very term "Big Brother" is
used ironically to imply a tender concern for the younger children who need a
guide and protector.
The Possibility of the Permanence of Totalitarianism
As early as 1937, Orwell had begun to see a new kind of totalitarian State
emerging. The Roman Catholic Church was in his eyes enough proof that such a
State had a good chance of becoming permanent. By 1940 Orwell had named the
new system, "Oligarchical Collectivism". Thus, when he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four
he made use of the knowledge and speculation which had been stored in his mind
over a long time to produce his picture of the totalitarian system prevalent in the
State of Oceania. In any case, he had already written Animal Farm in which he had
demonstrated how the Revolution aiming at liberation and freedom had been
betrayed and how the arms and- principles behind that Revolution had been
distorted and twisted in order to pave the way for the emergence of a ruthless
dictatorship.
The Two Major Satires BY Orwell
The Satirical Strain in Orwell's Earliest Writings
The satirical strain in Orwell's work emerged clearly in his earliest writings. But
his two major satires are Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. A satirist takes
the huge mass of available facts and, consciously or unconsciously, selects those

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details which are grotesque and ugly and which provoke him to expose their
absurdity and unacceptability.
A satirist has to select such details and this act of selection is a moral act. The act
of selection is also a creative act because it is in the organizing, arranging, and
shaping of his material that the satirist's art is revealed. Satirical writing is
therefore not a transparent medium through which the reader is given a clear view
of reality. Satirical writing is a kind of peculiar lens which renders distorted and
often grotesque images of society. In Down and out in Paris and London, for
example. Orwell's experience in the world of drunkards, beggars, tramps, thieves,
and prostitutes who live on the fringes of civilized society, is seen as a descent
into seething, squalid inferno. It is a descent into a world of fantasy where all is
ugliness, noise, decay, rot, and collapse. Even when Orwell asserts that his prose is
devoid of a satirical intention, his work takes the form of ironic fantasy or myth,
not of realism.
A Big Shock to Orwell's Belief in Democratic Socialism
Throughout Orwell's early novels, journals, and essays, what sustained Orwell was a
belief in democratic socialism. This belief saved him from total despair at the
spectacle of the human condition. But Orwell's bitter experience in the Spanish
Civil War and the shock of the Nazi-Soviet pact (of 1939) came as a great blow to
his belief, and marked the beginning of the mental and emotional state which led to
his writing his two major satires—Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. As long
as Orwell had been concerned with exposing the evils of British imperialism and of
the capitalist system, his faith in democratic socialism had been a great support to
mind. But when he turned his critical eye on the working of the communist system
and the dictatorship of the proletariat, he beheld fundamental lies and corruption.
(I) "ANIMAL FARM"
A Disturbing Element in the Gaiety and the Humour
Animal Farm was his first great cry of despair. This small book contains a satirical
beast fable which has been regarded by some critics as Orwell's lightest and
gayest work. Now, an element of gaiety is certainly present in this book. There is
always a surface gaiety, a seeming good humour, a light and bantering tone in all
beast fables. Animal Farm would have been a very bad tale indeed if it did not
possess these qualities which belong to the convention of beast fables. But Animal

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Farm is a remarkable achievement precisely because Orwell employs the apparently

frivolous form of a beast fable to convey, with tremendous power, his profoundly
bitter message. Those who regard Animal Farm as an excellent book simply because
of its admirable good humour and gaiety miss the whole point of the story. Animal
Farm does certainly contain much gaiety and humour, but even in the most comic
situations there is a disturbing element of cruelty or fear which mars the reader's
laughter. A couple of examples would show the truth of this statement. One of the
leaders of the revolt of the farm animals against their master is a pig called
Snowball. At one stage this leader is organizing the "Egg Production Committee"
for the hens, the "Clean Tails League" for the cows, the "Wild Comrades' Re-
education Committee" and the "Whiter Wool Movement" for the sheep. At the
same time the second and equally powerful leader of the revolution by the name of
Napoleon, who is a sinister and tyrannical pig, is carefully educating the dogs for
his own evil purposes. In other words, these two leaders of the revolution, who
should be working in close cooperation, are actually working at cross-purposes with
each other. Napoleon is particularly evil-minded. Thus, a comic situation has its
disturbing side. Again, the confessions forced from the animals in Napoleon's great
purges are very funny; but, when the dogs tear the throats of the “guilty" ones and
leave a heap of corpses at the tyrant's feet, the situation ceases to amuse. Thus
we find that Orwell is employing in such situations the technique of describing
ghastly events in a comic setting.
A Delicate, Satiric Balance
Then there is another view which deserves consideration. According to this view.
Animal Farm shows the over-riding importance of Orwell's love of animals. The
actual fact is that Orwell in Animal Farm loves animals only as much or as little as
he loves human beings. To say that he hates the pigs because they represent
human tyrants and sympathizes with the horses because they are dumb animals is
not quite correct. Nor is it essential that a truly successful animal fable should
carry with it a gay and light-hearted message. Indeed, the very idea of
representing human traits in animals is somewhat pessimistic. What is really
necessary for the success of a satirical beast fable is the author's power to keep
his reader conscious simultaneously of the human traits satirized and of the
animals as animals. If the animals in a satirical beast fable are allowed to remain
simply animals, the writing will become a non-satirical children's story; and. if the
animals are depicted as merely transparent symbols, the writing will become a dull

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sermon. In Animal Farm Orwell has been able successfully to maintain this delicate,
satiric balance.
Society as an Aggregation of Certain Classes or Types
The seeds of Animal Farm are clearly present in Orwell's earlier works. These
seeds are found firstly in the metaphors comparing men to beasts. But these seeds
are found more emphatically in Orwell's whole attitude towards society as depicted
in the earlier works in which he saw society as an aggregation of certain classes or
types. The types in those earlier works changed somewhat in appearance according
to the setting. Thus in Burmese Days we find such types as "pukka sahibs", corrupt
officials, and the miserable natives of Burma. In Down and Out in Paris and London,
we come across such types as the obnoxious nouveaux riches, greedy
restaurateurs, and over-worked plongeurs. But there remains the basic notion that
men naturally divide themselves into a limited number of groups which can be
isolated and characterized by an acute observer. This notion receives a dramatic
reality in Animal Farm. Here social types are presented in the various kinds of farm
animals. Thus pigs represent the exploiters; horses represent the labouring and
toiling workers ; the dogs represent the ruthless police; the sheep represent blind
followers; and so on. The characters in a satirical animal story may be cunning,
vicious, cynical, pathetic, lovable, or intelligent, but they can only be seen as
members of large social groups and not as individuals.
A Clever Satire on the Betrayal of the Russian Revolution
The most popular approach to Animal Farm is to regard it as a clever satire on the
betrayal of the Russian Communist Revolution and the rise of Stalin to power. The
struggle of the farm animals, having driven out their human exploiters, to establish
a free and equal community takes the form of a most skilfully worked-out history
of Soviet Russia from 1917 upto the time of the Teheran Conference. The political
allegory in Animal Farm is unmistakable. Inspired by the prophetic death-bed vision
of Old Major, the maltreated animals of Manor Farm successfully revolt against
Mr. Jones, their cruel master, and then they establish their own Utopian
community. They change the name of "Manor Farm" to "Animal Farm". The control
of the revolution comes into the hands of the pigs, particulary into the hands of
Napoleon who is a large, rather fierce-looking, boar, not much of a talker but with
a reputation for getting his own way. Napoleon shares power with Snowball who is a
more vivacious pig than Napoleon, who is quicker in speech and more inventive, but

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who does not have Napoleon's depth of character. Under the leadership of these
two pigs, and with the help of the two hard-working horses called Boxer and Clover,
the animals successfully repel the attacks of their rapacious human neighbours,
Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick. The farm is thus secured against invasion; and
then the Seven Commandments of Animalism are written down on the rear wall of
the big barn for the guidance and compliance of all the members of the community.
With this the revolution seems complete.
The Emergence of a Privileged Class
But, as the community develops, serious dangers begin to emerge. The pigs at once
decide that all the milk which the cows yield and all the apples which are harvested
will belong to them for their own consumption because, according to them, these
items of food are essential to the health and well-being of the pigs. Squealer, who
is Napoleon's lieutenant and the ablest talker, thus explains the decision that all
the milk and apples should go to the pigs only:
Milk and apple (this has been proved by science, comrades) contain substances
absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. Day and
night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk
and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty?
Jones would come back.
The Subsequent Developments: The Climax of the Satire
A rivalry now begins between Napoleon and Snowball but this growing rivalry is
decided by Napoleon's vicious dogs who drive Snowball away from the farm. It has
been suggested by some critics that Snowball is a symbol of altruism, the essential
social virtue, and that his expulsion is the defeat of his altruistic laws for giving
warmth, food, and comfort to all the animals. But there is no indication in the story
that Snowball is in any way less corrupt or less power-crazy than Napoleon. Indeed,
so far as the question of the milk and apples is concerned, all the pigs including
Snowball and Napoleon were in full agreement that these items of food should be
reserved wholly for the pigs. After Snowball has been driven away. Napoleon
consolidates his power through clever politics, propaganda, and terror. Dissentients
are brutally murdered; and when the most hard-working horse. Boxer, can no longer
work on account of old age and emaciation, he is sold to a butcher. Not only that.
One by one, the Seven Commandments of Animalism are distorted and twisted

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from their original form, and then, one by one, they are eliminated till the only
Commandment which remains is: "All animals are equal but some animals are more
equal than others." After that, the pigs begin to live in Mr. Jones's house; they
begin to walk on two legs; they begin to carry whips, wear human clothes, subscribe
to magazines and newspapers, and invite their human neighbours to a friendly game
of cards. The game ends in a violent argument when Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington
simultaneously produce an ace of spades from the cards dealt out to them. In
other words, the two players try to cheat each other. But for the animals, who
have been peeping through the window-panes at the game of cards, there is no real
quarrel. They look "from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man
again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." And here the climax
of the satire is reached.
A Satire on Fascism and Capitalism, Besides Communism
It has, of course, been recognized by almost all critics that Animal Farm is to be
interpreted in terms of Soviet history, and that Major, Napoleon, and Snowball
represent Marx, Stalin, and Trotsky respectively. (In the opinion of some, Major
represents not Marx but Lenin). However, the story has some application to the
western countries also, though many critics have failed to recognize this fact. The
barbs aimed at Russia are manifest, of course; but Orwell has a judgment to offer
about the west also. After all, the pigs do not turn into alien monsters; they come
to resemble those bitter rivals, Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick, who represent
the Capitalists and the Nazis. Orwell suggests that the three leading world-powers
are hateful tyrannies and that the failure of the Communist revolution is not to be
seen exclusively in terms of ideology but as a realization of the famous maxim:
"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." The initial spark of a
revolution and the original intention of a constitution may have been an ideal of the
good life, but the result is always the same, namely tyranny. Fascism. Nazism, and
Capitalism are as evil as Communism. They are all illusions which are inevitably used
as a means of satisfying the greed of the ruling clique and its lust for power. Even
religion is merely a device for the oppressors to divert the minds of the sufferers.
Moses, the tame raven, is a symbol of religion. He is always croaking about the
sweet and eternal life on Sugarcandy Mountain. He flies away when Mr. Jones has
been expelled from his farm, but he returns when Napoleon has established his
tyranny.

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The Essential Horror of the Human Condition
Animal Farm will remain a powerful satire even when the particular historical
events with which it deals in a veiled manner recede into the past, because the
major concern of the book is not with these events but with the essential horror
of the human condition. Orwell implies that there have been, that there are, and
that there will always be pigs in every society and that they will always grab power.
Even more depressing is the conclusion that everyone in society, consciously or
unconsciously, contributes to the tyranny exercised by the pigs. Boxer, the noblest
animal on the farm, devotes his labour continuously to the pigs who, as already
noted, sell him to the butcher when he has ceased to be useful. But Squealer
reports that Boxer died in his hospital-bed, with the words "Napoleon is always
right" on his lips. One of the critics offers the view that Animal Farm fails as
satire because of its predictability. But this predictability of the fate of all
revolutions is exactly the point which Orwell wants to make in this book. The
horror of Animal Farm, like the horror of the subsequent Nineteen Eighty-Four, is
precisely the cold and predictable process by which decency, happiness, and hope
are systematically and mercilessly destroyed.
(II) "NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR"
Orwell's Most Pessimistic Novel
Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell's last novel, brings together almost all the ideas of
his previous work. It is his most pessimistic novel. The mood of complete despair in
it seems to have been the result of Orwell's conclusion that he had explored all
the possible solutions to man's predicament on this earth and had found nothing
but lies. The whole world, in Orwell's view, is steadily but surely moving toward a
vast and ruthless tyranny and there is absolutely nothing that can stop this
monstrous movement.
Perpetual War among the Three World-Powers
Nineteen Eighty-Four is the story of the revolt against society of one man,
Winston Smith. The world against which Winston raises his voice of rebellion
represents the totality of all the hells which Orwell had ever tried to describe in
his previous writings. The world, as depicted in this novel, is divided into three
power-blocks—Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. Oceania, like the other two empires,
is ruled by an all-powerful Party, which has abolished private property and whose

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members are designated according to their functions and responsibilities, "Inner

Party" or "Outer Party". The membership of the Party represents only fifteen per
cent of the population; the remaining eighty-five per cent are the Proles or the
common people who are kept in a state of abject poverty and total ignorance. The
common people are fed upon lies invented and manufactured by the Ministry of
Truth, and they are terrorized by the Ministry of Love. (The irony behind
filenames of these ministries is to be noted). There is perpetual war among the
three empires, not to win control of the disputed territory but deliberately to
perpetuate shortages and to maintain an extremely low standard of living in order
to keep the people miserable. As Orwell had pointed out clearly in his earlier works,
poverty eliminates the possibility of thought, and independent thinking is the
greatest danger to the totalitarian states. The aim of the three super-powers in
this novel is therefore not victory but everlasting war. War is regarded by the
rulers of each of these states as essential to the stability of the government, and
the first basic tenet of Oceania therefore is: "War is Peace."
Winston Smith's Love-Affair with Julia:
Forbidden Pleasure
Winston Smith's revolt against the authorities of Oceania begins with his decision
to keep a diary; but this revolt receives its full expression in his love-affair with
Julia, a colleague of his in the Ministry of Truth. Julia is not at all interested in
politics or ideology. Her crime against the state is sex-crime; she enjoys sexual
intercourse. Now, the enjoyment of sexual intercourse is forbidden in Oceania.
Sex, like the family, represents a threat to the state, because it is essentially
private, isolated, and uncontrollable. Through many strategies and devices. Winston
and Julia manage to have secret meeting and ultimately hire an apartment in a
proletarian slum from a shop-owner named Charrington in order to be able to enjoy
sexual pleasure. The couple also make contact with a man called O'Brien who tells
them that he belongs to a group of persons who aim at the overthrow of the
government. Actually, however, both Charrington and O'Brien are the secret
agents of the government.
The Party's Lust for Power
The rest of the story deals with the total annihilation of Winston Smith, the
destruction of his personality, and his re-integration into society under the brutal

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persecution of O'Brien. Big Brother, who represents the supreme power in

Oceania, is almost a substitute for God, while the members of the Inner Party are
his priests. O'Brien is one of these priests, and it is on him that the responsibility
for dealing with Winston Smith falls. O'Brien performs the role of an inquisitor
who has to purify Winston by ridding him of the evil of heresy and bringing him
back to the right path. Winston is tortured in the most savage and monstrous
manner so that his resistance and will-power may be completely crushed and
obliterated. To Winston's question why the Party wants to cling to power, O'Brien
gives the following answer:
The party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good
of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or
happiness; only power, pure power. The object of power is power.
Thus O'Brien and his colleagues are not human beings but embodiments of the
power-principle. They achieve a vicarious immortality through their membership of
the inner Party, because the mind of the Party is collective and immortal.
The Complete Subjugation of Winston,
and his Tragic End
Towards the end, the description of Winston Smith, dirty, rotting, emaciated,
stinking, looking at himself in a mirror in the Ministry of Love, reminds us of
Swift's description of the disgusting Yahoos in Gulliver's Travels. All that is left is
the final vision of Winston, having betrayed Julia and himself, waiting for the
bullet which will end his miserable life, shedding miserable tears of repentance,
and loving big Brother.
No Ray of Hope in Orwell's Vision of the Future
Orwell could never reconcile himself to the stark facts which he anticipated as
part of human life as he visualized it. In an epoch of fear, tyranny, and
regimentation, he could never say: "I accept." It was an age of concentration
camps, rubber truncheons, Hitler, Stalin, bombs, machine-guns, purges, slogans, gas
masks, spies, secret prisons, and political murders. Orwell was unable to reconcile
himself quietly to such a catalogue of horrors in human society. Desperately he
sought an alternative and a means of relief, but he saw only hypocrisy and fraud,
injustice and tyranny, rottenness and foulness.

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The Characters in”Animal Farm”
(A) ANIMALS
(1) MAJOR
An Old and Wise Boar, the Champion of
the Rights of Animals
Major is the name of an old boar on Manor Farm which is owned by Mr. Jones
Major is twelve years old and is a majestic-locking pig with a wise and benevolent
appearance.
We meet him in the very opening chapter when, after having seen a strange dream
during the night he summons a secret meeting of all the animals on the farm and
makes them conscious of their miserable plight as working animals on the farm
owned by Mr. Jones. Major points out to the animals that Mr. Jones has been
reaping the fruits of all the labour and toil of the animals while not allowing to the
animals even the bare minimum of food for their subsistence. He tells the animals
that their lives are miserable, laborious, and short. No animal in England, he says,
knows the meaning of happiness or leisure: no animal in England is free; the life of
an animal is misery and slavery. The responsibility for this state of affairs, says
Major, rests on Mr. Jones, a human being. In fact, human beings are responsible
for all the sufferings and hardships which the animals have to endure. Man is the
only real enemy the animals have. If man is removed from the scene, the root cause
of hunger and overwork would be abolished for ever.
A Rebellion, Forecast by Major
Major in his speech to the animals at this secret meeting also makes them
conscious of the fact that every animal is slaughtered sooner or later. Cows, pigs,
hens, sheep—no animal escapes the cruel knife in the end. As all the evils in the life
of the animals have their source in the tyranny of human beings, the animals should
rebel against human beings. Rebellion, says Major, must come sooner or later.
Major exhorts all the animals to become united in a perfect comradeship and to
struggle to overthrow Mr. Jones who has mercilessly been, and still is, exploiting
them. Whatever goes upon two legs, is an enemy, says Major. He then gives to the

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animals some guidelines for their day-to-day behaviour. Finally, Major sings an old
song which he used to know in his infancy and which had come back to him in his
dream during the previous night. This song is called "Beasts of England”. Having
heard the song, most of the animals pick up the tune and some of the words, and
they join Major in singing the song.
The Allegorical Significance of Major
Subsequently, the animals on Manor Farm drive away Mr. Jones from the farm and
become the masters of the farm. It is Major who provides the motivating force
behind the animals' rebellion against Mr. Jones. The speech which Major delivers
to the animals is inflammatory. It is with this speech in their minds that the
animals decide to unite and forcibly evict their cruel and tyrannical master, Mr.
Jones, from the farm. In fact, Major symbolizes Karl Marx, the German
philosopher and economist who taught that the working classes were exploited by
the capitalists and that the working people should rise in revolt against the
capitalists in order to overthrow them and acquire the power to govern themselves
in accordance with the principles of justice and equality. The guidelines suggested
by Major symbolize the Communist Manifesto, man in the guidelines signifying the
whole capitalist class.
(2) NAPOLEON
A Fierce-Looking Boar, With Secret Designs
Napoleon, like Major, is a boar on Manor Farm. We meet him in the second chapter
of the book, and thereafter we find him becoming more and more important in the
story till he dominates the scene. He is described as a large, rather fierce-looking
Berkshire boa, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting things done
according to his own wishes. After Mr. Jones has been driven away from Manor
Farm by the united onslaught of the animals against him and his men, two pigs
emerge as the leaders. These two leaders are both pigs, named Napoleon and
Snowball. A rivalry soon begins between these two leading pigs, and each tries to
become supreme. While Snowball is quite outspoken, Napoleon works in a secretive
manner. Napoleon takes the initiative in announcing that all the milk and the apples
would be reserved for the pigs and that the other animals would have no share in
these two items of food, but Snowball too agrees with Napoleon so far as this
announcement is concerned. When the two bitches on the farm, namely Jessie and

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Bluebell, give birth to a number of puppies. Napoleon takes away the new-born
puppies from their mothers, saying that he would himself rear the puppies and look
after their well-being. He then begins secretly to rear these puppies and to train
them in accordance with his own private designs. The puppies soon grow into
fierce-looking dogs of whom Napoleon subsequently makes repeated use for his
own purposes.
Napoleon's Use of Force to Expel Snowball
Napoleon differs with Snowball regarding the latter's proposal to build a windmill
Napoleon is openly scornful of Snowball's project of the windmill and goes to the
length of urinating over the plan of the windmill which Snowball has drawn with a
piece of chalk on the floor of a shed. When Napoleon perceives that he would be
outvoted at the assembly of the animals summoned to discuss Snowball's project.
Napoleon makes use of his fierce dogs to attack Snowball and to drive Snowball
away from Manor Farm (which was renamed "Animal Farm" after the eviction of
Mr. Jones). Napoleon now becomes the sole leader on Animal Farm. And he has
achieved this position partly by deceit but chiefly by force.
His Repudiation of Democratic Procedures
Napoleon, who is now all the time protected by his fierce dogs, announces that
henceforward the meetings of the animals, which were held as a matter of routine
to discuss various matters pertaining to the farm, would no longer be held. He tells
the animals that in future all questions relating to the farm would be settled by a
special committee of pigs, presided over by himself. The animals, he says, would
assemble on Sunday mornings only to salute the flag, sing the song "Beasts of
England", and receive their orders for the week. Thus Napoleon discards the
democratic practice of all the animals meeting once a week to discuss various
matters and take decisions by a majority vote. Some of the animals, including a few
pigs, protest against Napoleon's announcement, but they are all silenced by the
threatening growls of Napoleon's dogs.
His Surprising Announcements
Another announcement that Napoleon makes after a few weeks is that the windmill
would be built after all. Squealer, who serves as Napoleon's propagandist, tells the
animals that Napoleon had always been inwardly in favour of building a windmill and
that his opposition to it, when Snowball made the proposal, was just a matter of

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"tactics". According to Napoleon's next announcement, the animals are required to

work on Sunday afternoons as well. Anyone absenting himself from this work would
have his rations reduced by half, according to this announcement.
His Violations of the Commandments
Soon afterwards, Napoleon announces that he would begin trading with the
neighbouring farms because he needs certain essential commodities and
materials for the welfare of Animal Farm. He demands a sacrifice from the hens
who are now asked to surrender their eggs to be sold in the market instead of
hatching them to produce chickens. Napoleon coerces the hens into agreeing to
his demand. Napoleon then engages a human being. Mr. Whymper, to act
an intermediary between himself and the human beings with whom he has started
having trading and commercial relations. All this is of course, contrary to
the Seven Commandments which had been formulated by him and Snowball
immediately after the expulsion of Mr. Jones and which were intended to
serve as the guiding principles of conduct for all the inmates of Animal Farm.
Napoleon violates yet another Commandment when he decides that the pigs as a
class would live in Mr. Jones's farmhouse and would sleep in the beds in
which human beings used to sleep. Squealer, of course, tries to justify this
decision in his talks with the other animals.
His Alibi for Every Misfortune
When the completed windmill is brought down by the force of a furious winter gale.
Napoleon holds Snowball responsible for the destruction of the windmill even
though Snowball is nowhere in the picture. In fact, every calamity, every hardship,
and setback which is experienced by the animals is attributed by Napoleon to the
mischief being made by Mr. Snowball even when it is obvious that Snowball has not
been seen by anyone on or near the farm. In this way Napoleon gets an alibi for
every misfortune that overtakes Animal Farm.
Cheated By Mr. Frederick
Napoleon now starts negotiations for the sale of some timber with two
neighbouring farmers, Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick. He comes to some sort of
understanding with Mr. Frederick who gives him cash in exchange for the timber.
But soon it is discovered that the currency notes given by Mr. Frederick are
forged. Soon afterwards Mr. Frederick invades Animal Farm, contrary to the

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understanding which had been reached by him with Napoleon. However, Mr.
Frederick and his men are defeated by the animals and driven away.
His Ruthlessness and Barbarity
Another arbitrary step which Napoleon takes is the elimination and liquidation of
all those animals whom he suspects of secretly opposing him and his policies. He
calls a meeting of all the animals and demands that all those animals who have
secretly been working against Animal Farm should come forward and confess their
guilt. Quite a large number of animals come forward one after the other and
confess their guilt. All these are immediately put to death by Napoleon's dogs
under Napoleon's orders. But it becomes evident to us that the confessions are not
spontaneous and that these confessions have been made by the animals under
duress. No doubt is now left in our minds about the ruthlessness and barbarity of
Napoleon in his attempts to rule Animal Farm as its undisputed and unchallenged
dictator.
A Totalitarian Regime, Established By Napoleon
Another Commandment is violated when Napoleon begins to drink whisky and allows
the other pigs also to drink it. He also orders the sowing of barley over a larger
area because he plans to set up a brewery on the farm in order to make beer for
the pigs including himself. As there is a food-shortage, Napoleon orders a
reduction in the rations of all the animals except in those of the pigs and the dogs.
Another step that Napoleon takes is to order the holding of when he calls
"Spontaneous Demonstrations" intended to show the animals’ support of him and
his policies. He now invest himself with new dignities and honours, and gets himself
elected the President of Animal Farm which is proclaimed a Republic. Yet another
step taken by Napoleon in violation of the Seven Commandments is to direct the
pigs to walk on their hind legs. Napoleon himself too now begins to walk on his hind
legs. The front legs now serve as arms and hands and are used to hold whips by
means of which the pigs supervise the work being done by the other animals under
their direction. The Seven Commandments are now reduced to one single
Commandment under Napoleon's orders, and this single Commandment reads as
follow: All Animals Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Other.” Thus
the ideal of equality and comradeship is new completely discarded and the
repudiation of this ideal is given a formal sanction. At the end we find Napoleon
establishing friendly relations with Mr. Pilkington and other human farmers.

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Napoleon, at this stage announces that the word “comrade" would no longer be used
by the animals at his farm when addressing one another, and that the farm would
henceforward be known by its original name which was "Manor Farm".
Stalin's Betrayal of the Russian Revolution, Exposed
Animal Farm is an allegorical satire. Napoleon, the pig, here symbolizes Stalin who
rose to be a ruthless dictator of Russia and who suppressed all the freedoms which
had been promised to the proletariat after the Communist Revolution of 1917.
Through the portrayal of Napoleon, the author has exposed to the readers Stalin's
betrayal of the ideals of the Russian Revolution.
(3) SNOWBALL
The Seven Commandments, Read Out By Snowball
Snowball is described as a more lively pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and
more inventive, but not having the same depth of character. When the rebellion
against Mr. Jones has been effected, Snowball comes into prominence as one of
the two leaders of the animals, the other being Napoleon. Snowball is the one who
throws into fire the ribbons with which the horses' manes and tails had usually
been decorated by Mr. Jones's men on market days. Snowball now declares that
ribbons should be regarded as clothes and that clothes are the mark of a human
being. All animals, says Snowball, should go naked. After all the aimals, led by
Napoleon, have inspected the farm buildings, and Mr. Jones's farmhouse, Snowball
declares that it is yet early in the morning and that they have a long day before
them. He informs them that the hay harvest is to be begun by them that very day
and that they should get ready for the work which lies ahead. However, before
taking the animals into the fields, Snowball has something more important to do. In
collaboration with Napoleon, he has already prepared the Seven Commandments
which embody the principles of ''Animalism". These Seven Commandments are now
to be inscribed on one of the walls of the big barn, and Snowball climbs up a ladder
in order to accomplish this task. He then reads the Severs Commandments aloud
for the benefit of the animals and all the animals nod in complete agreement.
His Efforts to Bring About Improvements on the Farm
Soon afterwards Snowball gets busy doing organizational
work on the farm. He forms a number of Animal Committees

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to bring about improvements on the farm. These committees include the Egg
Production Committee for the hens, the Clean Tails League for the cows, the Wild
Comrades' Re-education Committee, and the Whiter Wool Movement for the
sheep. He also institutes classes in reading and writing for the animals. He is
tireless in making efforts of this kind to promote the welfare of the farm. When
Snowball declares that the essence of all the Seven Commandments can be summed
up in a single maxim (“Four legs good, two legs bad”), the birds object to this maxim
on the ground that they have only two legs. But Snowball proves to the birds that
they have four legs each by his theory that a bird's wing is an organ of
propulsion and not of manipulation, and has therefore to be regarded as a leg. Thus
here we find Snowball adopting a false logic or sophistry in order to include the
birds among the four-legged animals.
Disagreements with Napoleon
In the beginning Snowball and Napoleon work together in collaboration, but soon
they begin to differ with each other, and the differences between them go on
increasing. In the beginning, Snowball agrees with Napoleon that the milk and
apples should be reserved exclusively for the pigs but afterwards they disagree on
almost every issue.
His Conspicuous Role is Repulsing the Attack By Jones
When Mr. Jones and his men invade the farm in order to re-capture it, Snowball
plays a conspicuous role in defending it. Snowball has been studying an old took
describing Julius Caesar's campaigns and had learnt something about the strategy
of fighting. On the basis of his superior knowledge, he is put in charge of the
defensive operations, it is on account of the tactics and the strategy employed by
Snowball that Mr. Jones and his men are defeated in the battle and are driven
away from the farm. In the course of the fighting, Snowball is wounded by the
pellets fired by Mr. Jones from his gun. After the battle, Snowball makes a
speech, emphasizing the need for all animals to be ready to die for Animal Farm if
need be. A military decoration called "Animal Hero, First Class", is then conferred
upon Snowball for his bravery in the battle.
Differences with Napoleon about the Windmill and About the Strategy of Defence
Snowball's disagreements with Napoleon now become more frequent. Each of the
two leaders has his own followers, and the debates between them at the meetings

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of the animals often become furious. At these meetings Snowball often wins over
the majority by his brilliant speeches, but Napoleon is able to convass support for
himself by working behind the scenes. Snowball, having made a close study of some
books dealing with agricultural operations, now formulates several plans for
innovations and improvements on the farm. He talks in a learned manner about
field-drains and other matters, and he works out a scheme for all the animals to
drop their dung directly in the fields, at a different spot everyday, to save the
labour of cartage. Snowball also suggests the construction of a windmill to produce
electricity for the farm. Napoleon treats the proposal about the windmill with
scorn. Snowball also differences with Napoleon so far as the question of the
defence of the farm is concerned. According to Napoleon, the animals should
procure fire-arms and train themselves. In the use of them. But, according to
Snowball, the animals should send out more and more pigeons to stir up rebellion
among the animals on the other farms. Snowball argues that if, rebellions occur
everywhere, the animals on Animal Farm would have no need to defend themselves.
Driven Away From the Farm by Napoleon's Fierce Dogs
Snowball spends a lot of time on working out the details about the construction of
the proposed windmill. With a piece of chalk he draws the complete plan of the
windmill on the wooden floor of a shed. However, when a meeting of the animals is
held to decide finally whether the construction of the windmill should be
undertaken, Napoleon suspects that the vote would go in Snowball's favour and he
gives a signal to his fierce dogs who attack Snowball and drive him away from the
farm. Snowball is never thereafter seen on Animal Farm, and Napoleon becomes
supreme. Subsequently, Snowball is defamed and slandered by Napoleon, with
Squealer assisting Napoleon by carrying on anti-Snowball propaganda among the
animals. Whenever any hardship or setback or misfortune is experienced on Animal
Farm, Napoleon attributes it to the mischief being done by Snowball, even though
Snowball is nowhere in the picture. The campaign of slander against Snowball by
Napoleon, helped by Squealer, never ceases, so that when Napoleon once falls ill
because he has taken too much whisky, it is given out that Snowball has managed to
poison Napoleon's food through one of his secret agents.
Stalin's Rival, Trotsky, Represented by Snowball
Snowball represents Trotsky who was regarded by Stalin as a rival and who was
expelled by Stalin first from the Russian Communist Party and then from Russia.

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After his expulsion from his homeland, Trotsky took refuge in various countries,
one after the other, eventually settling down in Mexico where he was assassinated,
presumably by a secret agent of Stalin's regime.
(4) SQUEALER
His Persuasive Powers
Squealer is described as a small, fat pig, with round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble
movements, and a shrill voice. He is a brilliant talker and, whenever he argues some
difficult point, he skips from side to side, whisking his tail, as a means of adding to
the persuasive effect of his argument. By his persuasive powers Squealer can turn
black into white. In other words, he can lend to a falsehood the appearance of a
convincing truth.
His Defence of the Decision about Milk and Apples
Squealer collaborates with Napoleon and Snowball in developing Major's

teachings into a complete system of thought called "Animalism", and then
formulating the Seven Commandments. When Napoleon announces, with
Snowball's consent, that the milk and the apples would be reserved exclusively
for the pigs, Squealer is deputed to explain the whole thing to all the animals
and to convince them about the need to reserve these items of food for the pigs
only. Squealer tells the animals that, by reserving the milk and the apples for
themselves, the pigs are doing nothing selfish. The sole object of the pigs in
consuming milk and apples is to preserve their health. Milk and apples, he says,
contain ingredients which are absolutely necessary to the well-being of pigs who
are the brain-workers and on whom the whole management and organization of the
farm depend. Squealer also says that, if the pigs do not consume milk and
apples, they would fail in the performance of their duties and that, in case that
happens, Mr. Jones would come back. When Squealer holds out this threat of
Mr. Jones's coming back to the farm, the animals feel convinced by Squealer's
logic. And, of course, when Squealer argues this point, he skips from side to side,
whisking his tail.
His Defence of All Decisions Taken by Napoleon
From this time onwards Squealer becomes a propagandist on behalf of the two
leaders but, when Snowball is driven away from the farm. Squealer has to carry on

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propaganda in favour of Napoleon only and has to malign and discredit Snowball as
much as possible in the eyes of the animals. After the expulsion of Snowball, this
propagandist begins to eulogise Napoleon and to exalt him. He tells the animals
that Comrade Napoleon has taken extra labour upon himself after having driven
away Snowball who was an enemy of Animal Farm. He tells the animals that
Comrade Napoleon firmly believes in the equality of all animals. He justifies
Napoleon's decision not to hold any more meetings of the animals to discuss the
affairs of the farm, on the ground that the animals would make wrong decisions if
the decisions were left to their judgment. Loyalty to Comrade Napoleon, he goes on
to say, is imperative. "Discipline, iron discipline, is the watchword", says Squealer.
It is because of Squealer's persuasive way of speaking that Boxer adopts a second
motto which is : "Napoleon is always right." When Napoleon decides to build the
windmill which he had previously opposed. Squealer explains to the other animals
that Napoleon had never in reality been opposed to the windmill and that his
opposition had been really a device to get rid of Snowball who was a dangerous
character and a bad influence. Squealer describes Napoleon's whole attitude
towards the windmill as "tactics". Squealer repeats this word "tactics" several
times, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail with a merry laugh.
His Brazen Lies, to Support Napoleon
Thereafter, on every occasion, Squealer justifies every decision, every

announcement, and every order issued by Napoleon. When there is a shortage of
food, Squealer reads out inflated figures of food-production on the farm in order
to convince the animals that there is no food shortage; and he does so in spite of
the fact that the rations of the animals have been reduced almost by half. As the
pigs and the dogs continue to get their full rations, Squealer now declares that too
rigid an equality in rations is contrary to the principles of Animalism. Squealer is
very ingenious in spreading false propaganda against Snowball. Whenever anything
goes wrong on the farm, Squealer attributes the responsibility to Snowball. On one
occasion he tells the animals that Snowball has sold himself to Mr. Frederick of
Pinchfield Farm and is instigating that man to attack Animal Farm in order to
capture it. Squealer goes to the extent of saying that Snowball had been in league
with Mr. Jones in the days when Mr. Jones owned the farm and even at the time
when Mr. Jones had invaded the farm in order to recapture it. Thus Squealer
proves his capacity to tell the most outrageous lies and to represent them as
truths. He carries on his false propaganda against Snowball and in favour of

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Napoleon in a most brazen and shameless manner. When Boxer is sold by Napoleon
to a horse-slaughterer. Squealer consoles the animals with the lie that Boxer has
been sent to a veterinary hospital where he will be treated by specialists. When
Boxer has been slaughtered by the slaughterer, Squealer tells the animals that
Boxer has died in the veterinary hospital and that all the efforts of the doctors
had failed to save Boxer's life. Squealer also now invents a lie that, while dying,
Boxer had said: "Long live Comrade Napoleon! Napoleon is always right."
The Symbolic Significance of Squealer
Squealer symbolizes the propaganda machinery which every totalitarian

government maintains to glorify its achievements and also to throw dust into the
eyes of the people. Here, of course, Squealer has a specific function in symbolizing
Stalin's propaganda machinery. It is also possible that Orwell intended Squealer to
symbolize the servile Russian Press which always supports and justifies the policies
of the Communist government. The Soviet News Agency, Tass, for instance, always
supports the decisions of the Russian government.
(5) BOXER
His Steadiness of Character, and Enormous
Powers of Work
Boxer is a cart-horse owned by Mr. Jones. He is an enormous beast, nearly

eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together. There
is a white stripe down his nose, giving him a somewhat stupid appearance. He is not
an animal of first-rate intelligence, but he is universally respected at the farm for
his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of work.
His Fighting Capacity, and His Gentle Nature
The chief characteristics of Boxer are his willingness to work hard, his enormous
powers of endurance, his loyalty to the farm, and his gentle nature. Boxer plays a
tremendous role in the Battle of the Cowshed, because his physical strength
proves to be of great help to the animals in the fight against Mr. Jones and his
men when they invade the farm to re-capture it. Boxer becomes the object of the
admiration of everybody. He now adopts a motto which is: "I will work harder."
Later he adds a second motto to the first: "Napoleon is always right." He, however,
feels very sorry to have hit one of the human beings, a stable-lad, with too much

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force. It seems to Boxer that the lad has died of the blow which Boxer had given
to him, and so he says: "He is dead. I had no intention of doing that. I have no wish
to take life, not even a human life."
His Incapacity to Learn to Read
For his bravery in the Battle of the Cowshed Boxer receives a medal called "Animal
Hero, Second Class". He now starts working for half an hour extra everyday. His
great strength proves to be a great asset in the building of the windmill. It is only
because of his strength that it becomes possible for the animals to drag huge
stones to the top of the hill from where these stones are allowed to slide down and
fall on the stony ground below in order to be shattered into fragments which can
then be used for the building of the walls of the windmill. While Boxer’s physical
strength and powerful muscles do him great credit, he finds the process of
learning to read a difficult affair. In fact, he finds it impossible to learn to read;
and he cannot go beyond the first four letters of the alphabet.
His Reactions to Napoleon's Violations of the Seven Commandments
Boxer feels uneasy when the pigs, under the leadership of Napoleon and Squealer;
begin to violate the various Commandments, but he does not rebel against the
leadership because, in the first place, he cannot read the Commandments himself
and secondly because he is essentially a mild-tempered animal. When the windmill
has to be built for the second and then for the third time, Boxer is one of the few
animals not to lose heart. When all sorts of malicious stories are spread by
Squealer against Snowball, Boxer again feels uneasy but has to reconcile himself to
the position taken up by Napoleon because he has already adopted the motto:
"Napoleon is always right." When, for instance, Squealer says that Snowball had
been in league with Mr. Jones, Boxer cannot believe it because he recalls that
Snowball had fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed, that Snowball had been
wounded in the course of the battle, and that Snowball had been honoured with the
award of "Animal Hero, First Class". But, when Squealer says that Comrade
Napoleon has stated categorically that Snowball had been Mr. Jones's agent from
the very beginning. Boxer replies : "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right."
Again, when Napoleon has carried out a massacre of his supposed opponents on the
farm, Boxer is very upset. But his reaction to this brutality committed by Napoleon
is again passive. His comment on what has happened is typical of his character.
Says he:

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I do not understand it. I would not have believed that
such things could happen at our farm. It must be due to some fault in ourselves.
The solution, as I see it, is to work harder. From now onwards I shall get up a full
hour earlier in the mornings.
His Tragic End
Boxer meets a very sad end. When the windmill is being rebuilt for the second
time, he again works very hard even though he has become somewhat older than
before and is nearing the time of his retirement. Clover and Benjamin, who are his
well-wishers, warn him to take care of his health but he pays no attention. Late one
evening, when Boxer is dragging a big stone towards the site of the windmill, he
falls down and is unable to get up. Blood trickles out of his mouth, and it is evident
to him that his lungs have burst. Squealer and Napoleon are immediately informed
of the mishap. Napoleon says that he would send Boxer to the veterinary hospital
in the nearby town of Willingdon, but actually sells him to a horse-slaughterer.
Boxer, who had always served Animal Farm faithfully and had been unfaltering in
his loyalty to Napoleon, is very meanly and shabbily treated by Napoleon who
proves utterly ungrateful and callous by selling the sick Boxer to a knacker. This is
perhaps the most poignant situation in the whole novel. Boxer's end is really tragic,
and our hearts are filled with great sympathy for him.
His Symbolic Significance
Boxer symbolizes the hard-working and suffering proletariat in Communist Russia.

The fate which he meets is the same which millions of the working class people
must have met during the long years of Stalinist regime in Russia and which the
working classes must have met in other totalitarian countries too.
(6) CLOVER
A Hard-Working Animal, Faithful to Napoleon
Clover is a stout, motherly mare approaching middle life, who has already given
birth to four foals when the story begins. Like Boxer, she becomes a very faithful
disciple of Napoleon and Snowball when the rebellion against Mr. Jones has been
completed; and she remains faithful to Napoleon after Snowball has been driven
away from the farm by Napoleon's fierce dogs. Like Boxer, she accepts the pigs as
her teachers and absorbs everything that they tell her; and, like Boxer, she passes

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on to the other animals what she has herself learnt from the pigs. Again, like
Boxer, she never fails to attend the meeting of the animals and to sing the song
called "Beasts of England". When the work of harvesting hay is being done on the
farm, she and Boxer harness themselves to the horse-rake and tramp steadily
round and round the field with a pig walking behind and giving them the necessary
directions. She and Boxer work whole-heartedly at all times. In this respect,
Clover differs from Mollie, the other mare, who is a shirker. Clover is not very
good at learning to read. Although she is able to learn the whole alphabet, she
cannot put words together. Whenever she wants to read through the Seven
Commandments, she seeks the help of Muriel, the goat, who has learnt to read
better even than the dogs.
Her Attachment to Boxer
Clover is a close friend of Boxer and spends a lot of her time with him. She is
Boxer's true well-wisher. She sometimes warns him to be careful not to overstrain
himself by working too hard, though Boxer never listens to her. When Boxer falls
down to the ground on account of sheer exhaustion while working to rebuild the
windmill, she feels very solicitous about him. Seeing the blood trickling out of his
mouth, she drops to her knees at his side and asks him how he is feeling. It is she
who immediately sends word about the mishap to Squealer, while she herself
remains by Boxer's side like Benjamin who also does the same, keeping the flies off
Boxer. During Boxer's illness, Clover spends all her spare time by Boxer's side,
administering medicines and talking to him. When she learns from Benjamin that
Boxer is being taken away by a horse-slaughterer, she raises an alarm. She then
shouts to Boxer, saying, "Boxer, Boxer! Get out of the van! Get out quickly! They
are taking you to your death!” However, she does not succeed in saving Boxer's life
because the driver of the van speeds away.
Clover's Reaction to Napoleon's Violations
of the Commandments
Clover, like Boxer, feels very uneasy whenever Napoleon deviates from the Seven
Commandments, but she feels quite helpless every time. For instance, when the
pigs, headed by Napoleon, move into the farmhouse and begin to live there and to
sleep in the beds of the human beings, Clover remembers that the Seven
Commandments had forbidden such a proceeding on the part of the animals. In

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order to make sure that she remembers this aright, and being unable properly to
read herself, she takes Muriel with her into the barn and asks the goat to read out
the Commandment which has something to say about not sleeping in beds. Muriel
reads out the Commandment which, however, has already been modified under
Napoleon's orders and which now runs as follows: ''No animal shall sleep in a bed
with sheets." Clover, however, recalls that the Commandment did not originally
mention sheets, though she has to remain quiet with the thought that perhaps her
memory is not serving her right. Similarly, when Napoleon has punished his
supposed opponents among the animals with death, Clover recalls one of the
Commandments which had said that no animal would kill any other animal. Clover's
eyes are filled with tears on this occasion. She feels deeply distressed by what has
happened because this is not the sort of thing which the animals had aimed at when
they had overthrown Mr. Jones. Such scenes of terror and slaughter were not
what the animals had looked forward to on that night when Old Major had first
urged them to rebellion. Clover has always looked forward to a society of animals
set free from hunger and from the whip, all animals equal, each working according
to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak. Instead of all this, she thinks, the
animals find themselves in a state in which no one dares to speak his mind; when
fierce, growling dogs roam everywhere; and when the animals are torn to pieces
after being made to confess their crimes. However. Clover consoles herself with
the thought that the animals are still much better off than they had been in the
days of Mr. Jones. In spite of her uneasiness, she decides to remain faithful to the
farm, to work hard, to carry out the orders which are given to her, and to accept
the leadership of Napoleon. And yet, it is not for this that she and all the other
animals had worked and toiled. It was not for this that they had built the windmill
and faced the bullets of Mr. Jones's gun. Such were Clover's thoughts on this
occasion though she lacked the words to express them. In order to soothe her
ruffled feelings, Clover then begins to sing "Beasts of England", and the other
animals sitting near her begin to sing it also. But just then Squealer arrives and
tells her and the other animals that the song called "Beasts of England" has been
abolished and that another song has been composed to take its place. Here is yet
another departure from the original code of conduct.
Her Whole-hearted Performance of Her Duties
Still brooding upon the slaughter of animals ordered by Napoleon, Clover takes
Benjamin into the barn and asks him to read out to her the Sixth Commandment.

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Benjamin reads this Commandment which, however, now runs as follows: "No animal
shall kill any other animal without cause." Clover thus finds that there is an
addition of two words to this Commandment at the end; but, again thinking that
perhaps her memory is playing her a trick, she remains quiet. When Napoleon
orders the holding of what he has called "Spontaneous Demonstrations", Clover and
Boxer gladly carry a green banner marked with the hoof and the horn and bearing
the following words: "Long Live Comrade Napoleon!" Clover does her part of the
duty whole-heartedly, as does Boxer.
Not Allowed to Retire
When the story ends, we find that Clover has become old and that she now feels
stiff in the joints and has a tendency to rheumy eyes. She is two years past the
retiring age, but has not been granted retirement. In fact, no animal has ever been
allowed actually to retire. This means that every animal must continue working till
he dies or till he is sold to a butcher. Thus, in the long run the fate of the animals
during Napoleon's regime is no better than it was in the days of Mr. Jones.
Her Allegorical Significance
Clover, like Boxer, represents the toiling and suffering proletariat in Soviet Russia.
Through Clover's reactions to Napoleon's violations of the Seven Commandments,
we are made to realize how far Stalin had moved away from the original ideals of
the Russian Revolution. Through Clover's feelings on various occasions, we are made
to realize the injustices and cruelties perpetrated by Stalin upon the Russian
people in order to keep them completely under his control.
(7) BENJAMIN
A Cynical Donkey
Benjamin the donkey is the oldest animal on the farm when the story begins, and he
is described as "the worst tempered" of all. He seldom talks; and when he does
talk, it is generally to make some cynical remark. For instance, he would say that
God has given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would rather have no tail
and no flies. He is the only one among the animals on the farm who never laughs. If
asked why he never laughs, he replies that he finds nothing to laugh at.

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His Philosophy of Life
Benjamin's philosophy of life is that things never really change. Having this
attitude to life, he does not change at all after the rebellion against Mr. Jones and
after Mr. Jones's eviction from the farm. He remains the same as before, and
does his work in the same slow, obstinate way in which he had done it in Mr.
Jones's time. He never shirks work, but he never volunteers for extra work either.
About the Rebellion and its results, he expresses no opinion. When asked whether
he is not happier now that Mr. Jones has gone, Benjamin would reply only: "Donkeys
live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey." The other animals have
to be content with this cryptic reply. Benjamin learns to read as well as any pig,
though he never exercises his reading faculty to any great extent. His view is that
there is nothing worth reading; and this too shows his cynical nature.
No Hope of Improvement in the Quality of Life
When Mr. Jones and his men attack the farm in order to recapture it, Benjamin
rises to the occasion and takes an active part in the fighting. Alongwith the others,
he rushes forward and kicks the men with great force, lashing at them with his
hoofs. When voting takes place on the issue of the building of the windmill, the
animals form themselves into two parties, one supporting Snowball and the other
supporting Napoleon. On this occasion Benjamin is the only animal who does not side
with either of the parties. He refuses to believe either that food would become
more plentiful or that the windmill would save labour. Windmill or no windmill, he
says, life would go on as it has always gone on, that is, badly. This emphasizes his
cynical view of life.
His Friendship with Boxer
From the very beginning, Benjamin is very friendly with Boxer and is, in fact, very
devoted to him. Benjamin spends his Sundays with Boxer, both of them grazing
together in the field, but never speaking. When Boxer overworks himself in the
course of the building and the rebuilding of the windmill, Benjamin, like Clover,
warns him against overstraining himself, though Boxer does not listen to them.
When Boxer in the course of his hard work falls down and becomes seriously ill,
Benjamin, like Clover, looks after him. Benjamin lies down by Boxer's side and
keeps the flies off Boxer with his long tail. When Boxer is put into the horse-
slaughterer's van to be taken away, it is Benjamin who comes galloping to inform all

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the other animals that Boxer is being taken away ; and then it is he who reads out
the name of the owner of the van to the other animals. He says to the other
animals: "Do you not see what is written on the side of that van?" He informs them
that the van belongs to a horse-slaughterer and that Boxer is being taken to the
knacker's establishment. However, the other animals as well as Benjamin feel quite
helpless in the matter.
His Pessimistic View of Life, Unchanged at the End
At the end of the story we are told that old Benjamin is much the same as ever,
except that he has become a little more gloomy and reticent after Boxer's death.
Years after the Rebellion against Mr. Jones, only old Benjamin remembers every
detail of his long life. He is still of the opinion that things can never become much
better or much worse than they have been before. In his opinion, hunger, hardship,
and disappointment are the unalterable law of life. Finally, it is Benjamin who reads
out to Clover the Seventh Commandment which is the only Commandment left on
the wall of the barn and which has considerably been modified. This Commandment
now reads as follows: "All Animals Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal
Than Others."
His Symbolic Significance
Benjamin symbolizes the stoical and cynical philosopher who does not believe that
any real improvement or progress in human affairs is possible. Many of us would be
inclined to agree with his point of view. After all, basically, life in Russia has not
changed much since the days of the Czar who was overthrown by the
revolutionaries. On coming to power, the Bolshevists or the Communists gradually
became more and more autocratic till a totalitarian State was established under
the dictatorship of Stalin. Materially speaking, Russia may have greatly progressed
since the days of the Czar but none of the basic freedoms—freedoms of thought,
speech, and action—is available to the Russian people just as none of these
freedoms were available to the people during the regime of the Czar.
Technologically, of course, Russia has made tremendous strides.

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(8) MOLLIE
A Conceited, Pretty, White Mare
Mollie is the name of a foolish, pretty, white mare who used to draw Mr. Jones's
carriage. She is a conceited creature, having too high an opinion about herself. She
is fond of wearing red ribbons in her white mane and of chewing lumps of sugar.
When the animals are preparing for a rebellion against Mr. Jones, Mollie asks
Snowball: "Will there still be sugar after the rebellion?" This is a foolish question
to which Snowball replies that there would be no sugar available after the rebellion
and that she would have enough quantity of oats and hay to eat. She then asks
another foolish question which is whether she would be allowed to wear ribbons in
her mane after the rebellion. Snowball once again gives a negative answer, this time
saying that ribbons are a mark of slavery.
Vain; Slack in Her Work; and Cowardly
Mollie is not only vain about her appearance, but is averse to work also. She does
not get up early in the morning as the other animals do, and she has a way of
leaving her work undone on the ground that she is having a stone stuck in her hoof.
She wants to lead an easy and comfortable life. Nor is she good at reading. In fact,
she refuses to learn even the alphabet. She learns only six letters from the
alphabet, the six letters with which her own name is spelt. She then gets into the
habit of forming these letters out of pieces of twig, decorating them with a couple
of flowers, and walking round them in admiration. This behaviour again confirms us
in the view that she is a vain creature. When Mr. Jones and his men invade the
farm in order to recapture it, all the animals fight against the invaders with great
determination and win a victory but Mollie is nowhere to be seen on this occasion.
Subsequently, it is found that Mollie had fled from the scene as soon as Mr. Jones
had fired his gun, and had hidden herself in her stall in the stable, with her head
buried in the hay. Thus, besides being vain and being slack in her work, she is also a
coward.
Her Desertion of Animal Farm
After some time, Mollie becomes more and more troublesome on the farm. She
gets up late for work every morning and gives all sorts of excuses for her late-
coming. She complains of pains in her body, although her appetite is excellent. She
runs away from work and goes to the drinking pool where she stands, foolishly

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gazing at her own reflection in the water. But this is not all. She is found to be
guilty of treachery towards Animal Farm because she begins to hobnob with human
beings belonging to a neighbouring farm. Subsequently, Mollie leaves Animal Farm
and takes up a job with a tavern-keeper in Willingdon to work as his cart-horse.
Thus Mollie has proved to be a disloyal animal who deserts her own community and
goes over to the enemies.
(9) MOSES, THE RAVEN
A Clever Talker; a Spy; and a Tale-Bearer
Moses is a tame raven kept by Mr. Jones as a pet. Moses is described as a spy and
a tale-bearer, and also as a clever talker. He claims to know about the existence of
a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Mountain to which, he says, all animals go
after their deaths. Sugarcandy Mountain, according to him, is situated somewhere
up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds. In Sugarcandy Mountain, says
Moses, all the seven days of the week are Sundays, clover is in season all the year
round, and lump sugar grows on the hedges. Thus Moses depicts Sugarcandy
Mountain as a kind of paradise. The animals hate Moses because he merely tells
tales and does not do any work. However, some of the animals believe in the
existence of Sugarcandy Mountain, and the pigs have to argue very hard to
persuade them that there is no such place. When Mr. Jones is being driven away
from the farm by the animals, who are united against him, and when Mrs. Jones
slips away from the farm, Moses goes after her, croaking loudly, because Moses
would not like to remain behind on the farm when his masters are leaving. After all,
Mr. Jones has been feeding Moses on pieces of bread soaked in beer.
His Talk About as Animals' Paradise
After several years, Moses reappears on Animal Farm. He is quite unchanged. He

still does no work, and he talks in the same manner as before about Sugarcandy
Mountain. He now develops a habit of sitting on a stump and talking for hours to
anyone who would listen to him. Addressing the animals as comrades, he says that
Sugarcandy Mountain, the happy country where all animals would rest for ever
from their labours, lies up in the sky beyond the clouds. He even claims that he has
personally visited Sugarcandy Mountain and has seen with his own eyes the
everlasting fields of clover, and the lump sugar growing on the hedges. Many of the
animals believe him because, according to them, their lives on this earth are

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laborious and that for this reason it is only fair to expect that a better world than
this one exists somewhere. The pigs are openly contemptuous of Moses because,
according to them, his stories about Sugarcandy Mountain are lies. However, the
pigs let him remain on the farm without working, and permit him also to draw some
beer daily with his rations.
The Symbolic Significance of Moses
Moses in the story symbolizes first the Russian Orthodox Church and subsequently
the Roman Catholic Church. Moses is tolerated by the pigs on the farm because
Stalin, after having repudiated religious orthodoxy, tried subsequently to mend his
relations with the Pope in Rome through the good offices of a priest whom he
invited to meet him and whom he tried to placate so that the priest might try to
bring about some sort of understanding between the Pope and the Russian dictator.
Moses' talk of Sugarcandy Mountain is typical of a priest's talk to his
congregations about a heavenly life after the end of the earthly existence.
(10) MURIEL
An Intelligent White Goat with a Capacity to Read
Muriel is the name of a white goat on Animal Farm. She is quite an intelligent and
clever animal who learns to read even better than the dogs who are next only to
the pigs in their capacity to read. When the farm is invaded by Mr. Jones and his
men who want to recapture the farm, Muriel takes an active part in the fighting
against them. She is one of those who rush forward and attack the men from every
side. Muriel is very friendly with Clover and, because she can read well, she reads
out the Seven Commandments whenever Clover wants to consult them. For instance,
it is Muriel who reads out the Sixth Commandment to Clever at Clover's request
when Clover recalls that the Sixth Commandment had forbidden the animals to kill
one another. When Muriel reads out the Sixth Commandment, it has already been
modified by the addition of two words and now runs as follows: "No animal shall kill
any other animal without cause."

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An Intelligent Member of the Proletariat
Muriel has no particular symbolic significance. She is just an ordinary member of

the proletariat, though she represents the literate and more intelligent sections of
the proletariat.
(11, 12, 13) JESSIE, BLUEBELL. AND PINCHER
The Dogs on Animal Farm
Jessie and Bluebell are the names of two bitches on Animal Farm, while Pincher is
the name of a dog. When Jessie and Bluebell give birth to their young ones,
Napoleon takes away all their puppies, saying that he would personally bring up the
puppies and train them. Napoleon then rears these puppies secretly and gives them
the kind of training which he had in mind. In course of time, the puppies grow into
fierce dogs who are very devoted to Napoleon and who carry out his commands
promptly. It is these dogs who, at Napoleon's signal, pounce upon Snowball and
drive him away from the farm; and it is these dogs who subsequently act as
Napoleon's bodyguards and who also put to death the suspected opponents of
Napoleon when Napoleon forces these supposed opponents to confess their guilt.
Symbolic of Secret Police
The fierce dogs of Napoleon symbolize the secret police through whom Stalin used
to order the arrest of those who were suspected of being his opponents.
Note. In addition to the above-named animals, there are, in the story, a large
number of sheep and pigeons, some cows, a large brood of ducklings, and a cat, who
are not named. All these represent the common people or the working class, none
of whom is able to attain any prominence.
The Sheep and the Pigeons
The sheep symbolize the blind followers or the yes-men of a Communist dictator,
while the pigeons symbolize the secret agents of a Communist dictator who makes
use of their services to carry on an insidious propaganda in favour of Communism in
other countries.

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(B) HUMAN BEINGS
(1) MR. JONES
His Neglect of the Animals
Mr. Jones is the owner of Manor Farm where the entire action of the story takes
place. It is against him that Major, the old and wise boar, instigates the animals to
revolt. Mr. Jones has in the past been a capable farmer but, when the story opens,
he is found to have become quite neglectful. Although he is still an exacting
master, he has become indifferent to the welfare of the animals he owns. He has
lost money in a lawsuit and has become much disheartened. Having thus fallen on
evil days, he has taken to drinking heavily. For several days at a stretch, he sits in
his chair in the kitchen, reading newspapers, drinking, and occasionally feeding
Moses (the raven) on pieces of bread soaked in beer. As a result of his
indifference to the farm, his men have become idle and dishonest so that the
animals are now neglected and underfed. Under the circumstances the animals find
it easy to drive away Mr. Jones from the farm by using force against him and his
men, when one day they find that they have not been fed at all.
(2, 3) MR. PILKINGTON AND MR. FREDERICK
Owners of Two Neighbouring Farms
Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick are the owners of two different farms adjoining
Animal Farm. Mr. Pilkington is the owner of Foxwood Farm, while Mr. Frederick
owns Pinchfield Farm. Mr. Pilkington is an easy-going gentleman-farmer who spends
most of his time in fishing or hunting, according to season. His is a large, neglected,
old-fashioned farm, with all its pastures worn out and its hedges in a disgraceful
condition. Mr. Frederick is a tough, shrewd man, constantly involved in lawsuits and
with a reputation for driving hard bargains.
Their Attitude Towards Animal Farm
Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick are on permanently bad terms. They dislike each
other so much that they can never come to any agreement, ever in defence of their
own interests. However, when the rebellion on Animal Farm has taken place, they
both feel frightened, and become anxious to prevent their own animals from
following the example of the animals of Mr. Jones's farm. At first the two men
pretend to laugh at the idea of animals managing a farm for themselves. They say

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that the whole thing would collapse in a fortnight. They circulate a humour that the
animals on Mr. Jones's farm are constantly fighting among themselves and would
soon starve to death. When some time has passed and the animals on that farm
have not starved to death, Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick change their mode of
propaganda against that farm. They now begin to talk of the terrible wickedness
which, according to them, is flourishing there. They give out that the animals on
that farm are practising cannibalism, torturing one another with red-hot
implements, and sharing their females. According to these two men, the animals on
that farm have gone against the laws of Nature in having driven away their human
master, and will inevitably suffer the grievous consequences of the step they had
taken.
Forged Currency Notes
At a later stage in the story, Napoleon negotiates with both these men for the sale
of some timber which Napoleon wishes to dispose of in order to make some money.
After some dilly-dallying, Napoleon decides to sell the timber to Mr. Frederick
from whom he thinks he can get more favourable terms. Napoleon is very happy
when he is able to sell the timber to Mr. Frederick against hard cash, but soon
afterwards Napoleon finds that Mr. Frederick has cheated him by having given him
forged currency notes. Subsequently, Mr. Frederick invades Animal Farm with a
large number of his men in spite of the fact that he had previously come to some
sort of understanding with Napoleon. In the course of this invasion Mr. Frederick's
men blow up the windmill on Animal Farm with explosives, thus causing a heavy loss
to the animals.
As a Guest at Animal Farm
Towards the end of the story, it is Mr. Pilkington who becomes more friendly with
Napoleon and who is invited to Animal Farm as the head of a small delegation of
farmers to visit and inspect Animal Farm to satisfy themselves that everything on
Animal Farm is going on well. Mr. Pilkington on this occasion delivers a speech in
which he expresses his happiness at the fact that a perfect understanding and
friendship now exists between Animal Farm and the human beings. "Between pigs
and human beings there was not, and there need not be, any clash of interests
whatever.” says Mr. Pilkinston. Mr. Pilkington congratulates the pigs on the low
rations, the long working hours, and the complete absence of laxity prevailing on
Animal Farm. He then proposes a toast to the prosperity of Animal Farm. At the

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end of the story, we learn that Mr. Pilkington and Napoleon have each played an ace
of spaces simultaneously. This mean that each of the two leaders is a cheat, and
that there is no difference between the behaviour of human beings and that of the
pigs.
The Allegorical Significance of Mr. Pilkington
Mr. Pilkington in the story seens to represent Churchill, who was the Prime
Minister of England when this book was written. His farm therefore may be taken
to symbolize Britain which became very friendly with Russia after Russia had been
invaded by Hitler's armies. As a consequence of the German invasion, Russia had to
fight against Hitler's might thus becoming an ally of the western democratics
(Britain, U.S.A., and France; which had already beers fighting against Hitler.
The Allegorical Significance of Mr. Frederick
Mr. Frederick symbolizes Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany, who plunged the
world into war in September, 1939 and who won lightning victories m the beginning.
In August, 1939 Hitler had signed a no-war pact with Stalin. (The understanding
reached between Napoleon and Mr. Frederick in the story is an obvious reference
to this no-war pact). Subsequently, in 1941. Hitler invaded Russia in gross violation
of this no-war pact. In the same way, Mr. Frederick invades Animal Farm in spite of
the understanding which had been reached between him and Napoleon. The name of
Mr. Frederick's farm is significant. "To pinch" means "to steal". "Pinchfieid Farm"
therefore signifies a country which aims at stealing or annexing or usurping other
countries, it was Hitler's ambition to conquer all the countries of in this way to
become the master of the whole world.
(4) MR. WHYMPER
Mr. Whymper is a solicitor who is engaged by Napoleon to look after his trading
and commercial interests in his dealings with human beings. Mr. Whymper is
required to visit Animal Farm very Monday in order to receive his instructions from
Napoleon. Mr. Whymper lives in the nearby town of Willingdon, and has agreed to
act as an intermediary between Animal Farm and the outside world. Mr. Whymper
is a sly-looking little man with side whiskers. Having not much of a professional
practice, he promptly agrees to become Napoleon's agent because he is sharp
enough to realize that Animal Farm needs a broker and that the commissions would
be worth having. The animals on the farm feel quite proud to see that a two-legged

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creature stands before their leader, the four-legged Napoleon, every week in
order to receive orders from Napoleon. It is through Mr. Whymper that Napoleon
conducts negotiations with Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick; and it is Mr. Whymper
who makes the discovery that the currency notes given by Mr. Frederick to
Napoleon are forged and who then brings this shocking fact to the notice of
Napoleon.
Bring out the allegorical significance of Animal Farm.
"Animal Farm", as Allegorical Satire
Animal Farm is specifically a satire on the Russian Revolution and its betrayal. It is
also a satire on revolutions in general, because every revolution is, according to
Orwell, betrayed in course of time. The satire in Animal Farm is not direct, but
allegorical. In other words, we are given a satire in disguise, because human beings
are not represented in the story as human beings but are disguised as animals.
Thus the technique of the allegorical satire in Animal Farm is much the same as in
Swift's book Gulliver's Travels, The author of Animal Farm conveys his ideas to us
by means of a beasts' fable. We are all familiar with the animal stories of the
ancient Greek writer, Aesop. Each of these animal stories has a moral for the
reader because the animals in these stories are human beings is disguise. Likewise
the animals in Orwell's story Animal Farm are human beings in disguise, some of
them being actual historical personalities. Of course, there are also a few human
beings in the story who exist as human beings. To this category belong the
farmers. Mr. Jones, Mr. Pilkington, and Mr. Frederick, and the solicitor, Mr.
Whymper. Apart from these, the stage is held by animals of various categories.
The Russian Revolution, and the Triumph of Communism
The human beings in this story symbolize the capitalist class of human society,
while the animals all represent Communists. The wild creatures who could not be
tamed and who continued to behave very much as before are the muzhiks or
peasants. The pigs are the Bolshevists. The Rebellion (against Mr. Jones) is the
Russian Revolution of October, 1917. The neighbouring farmers are the western
armies who tried to support the Czarists against the Reds. The wave of

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rebelliousness which ran through the countryside after the Revolution, refers to
the unsuccessful revolutions in Hungary and Germany in 1919 and 1923 respectively.
The sign of the hoof and horn on the flag adopted by the animals is the hammer
and sickle on the Russian flag. The "Spontaneous Demonstration” symbolizes the
May Day celebrations. The "Order of the Green Banner" stands for the "Order of
Lenin'". The special committee of pigs presided over by Napoleon represents the
Russian Politbureau. The revolt of the hens, which is the first Rebellion since the
expulsion of Mr. Jones (who symbolizes the Czar), refers to the sailors rebellion at
the Kronstadt naval base in 1921. Napoleon's dealings with Mr. Whymper and the
Willingdon market represent the Treaty of Rapallo, signed by Russia with Germany
in 1922. (This Treaty brought to an end the capitalists' boycott of Soviet Russia).
The Names of the Animals, and the Significance of Those Names
The names of the animals have carefully been chosen by Orwell and are highly
suggestive of the historical personalities for whom they have been used. The first
animal to be introduced in the story is Major who represents either Karl Marx or
Lenin, or both of them. Major has a military appearance and is a dominating figure.
The rather stupid but self-sacrificing horse, Boxer, represents the proletariat.
Boxer stands in contrast to the cynical donkey, Benjamin. Boxer has been named
after the Chinese revolutionaries who drove out foreign exploiters and were
themselves crushed. Mollie, the mare, represents the White Russians. She
suggests folly, and her retrogressive defection, prompted by vanity and a love of
luxury, is a paradigm of the entire Russian Revolution. Moses symbolizes the
Russian Orthodox Church and, later, the Roman Catholic Church. His name is also
significant because he is supposed to bring the divine law to man. Squealer is an
appropriate name also, because he is a garrulous and noisy pig who represents the
Russian propagandist newspaper Pravda. Mr. Whymper, the agent of the pigs,
suggests a toady. Mr. Pilkington is the capitalist exploiter who symbolizes Churchill
and Churchill's country, England. Mr. Pilkington is an old-fashioned gentleman who
enjoys country sports on Foxwood which has associations of both craftiness and
the Tory landed gentry. Mr. Frederick reminds us of Frederick the Great, who was
the founder of the Prussian military State. Mr. Frederick symbolises Hitler who
admired Frederick the Great as a great hero. Mr. Frederick is a tough, shrewd man
who drives hard bargains, steals other people's land for his own farm which has
been appropriately named "Pinchfield", and practises terrible cruelties upon his
subjects. The van sent by the slaughter-house to take away the sick Boxer reminds

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us of the terrible gas vans used by the Germans for the extermination of the
supposed traitors and the enemies of Hitler's regime. Although Clover screams,
"They are taking you to your death," the sound of Boxer's hoofs inside the van
grows fainter and dies away. This is symbolic of the fate of the victims of the
barbaric cruelties which were inflicted by Hitler upon his enemies or supposed
enemies.
An Allegorical Portrayal of the Character of Stalin
The most important animals in the story are Napoleon and Snowball. Napoleon
represents Stalin, and Snowball represents Trotsky. The personalities of Napoleon
and Snowball are anti-thetical, and the two leaders are never in agreement. Stalin
and Trotsky too were opposed to each other, and they too never agreed with each
other on any issue. The characters of Napoleon and Snowball is the story are
drawn fully and accurately, and the two characters reflect almost all the dominant
characteristics of their historical models. Orwell compares Stalin to Napoleon
because Trotsky was the first to have compared his rival Stalin to the historical
Napoleon who rose from an ordinary position to become a great dictator and
tyrant. Both the historical Stalin and the historical Napoleon turned revolutions
into dictatorships. Napoleon, the pig, is fierce-looking ; he is "not much of a taker,
but has a reputation for getting his own way." He dominates the party machinery,
controls the education of the young, and is an expert at plotting and at canvassing
support for himself. Napoleon the pig never presents any of his own plans; he
always criticizes the plans offered by Snowball, though he eventually adopts the
very plans which were suggested by Snowball and even claims that he had invented
them. Napoleon first distorts history, and then changes it. He blames Snowball for
all his own failures, accuses him of plotting with foreign enemies, sends him into
exile, and finally pronounces a death-sentence upon him. Napoleon also announces
false production figures, takes credit for every successful achievement and even
for every stroke of good luck, wins elections unanimously, and replaces the worship
of Major with a more elaborate worship of himself. In short, Napoleon the pig
symbolizes the historical Stalin, the dictator of Soviet Russia, in every detail; and
the portrayal is, of course, highly satirical. Orwell complained that the people of
his time had all become pro-Stalin and had forgotten the executions and the
purges which Stalin had carried out in a barbaric manner to consolidate his own
position as the unchallenged dictator.

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An Allegorical Portrayal of the Character of Trotsky
The name Snowball reminds us of Trotsky's white hair and beard. This name
implies also that Trotsky had melted (like snow) before Stalin's opposition to him.
Snowball is a brilliant speaker; sometimes unintelligible to the masses bat eloquent
and impressive, more lively and inventive than Napoleon and a much greater writer.
He is also intellectual and energetic. Now, this portrayal of Snowball is very close
to the actual character of Trotsky. In 1921, for instance, the writer Deutscher
had said that Trotsky, besides running the army and serving on the Politbureau,
had been performing many other important tasks also. Orwell's description of
Snowball's activities, though a comic parody, is close to the historical facts about
Trotsky. Snowball, we are told, busied himself with organizing the other animals
into "Animal Committees". He formed the "Egg Production Committee" for the
hens, the "Clean Tails League" for the cows, the "Wild Comrades Re-education
Committee", and various others, besides instituting classes in reading and writing.
Snowball studies military history, organizes, commands, and leads the army to
victory in the "Battle of the Cowshed" (which represents the Civil War in Russia)
where foreign powers help Mr. Jones and invade the farm (that is, Russia). After
the invasion, Snowball is "full of plans for innovations and improvements".
Conflicts Between Trotsky and Stalin, Depicted Allegorically
Two of the most important conflicts between Trotsky and Stalin are also
allegorically depicted in the novel. Trotsky fought for the priority of
industrialization over agriculture, and his ideas for the expansion of the Socialist
sector of the economy were ultimately adopted by Stalin in the first five-year plan
of 1928 which called for a collectivization of farms and also for industrialization.
Likewise, we are told, Snowball visualized fantastic machines which would do the
work while the animals would graze at their ease in the fields. So much labour
would be saved by the machines that the animals would only have to work for three
days in a week. Stalin wanted comprehensive and drastic collectivization. Likewise,
Napoleon in the novel argues that the great need of the moment is to increase food
production, and that, if the animals waste their time on the windmill, they would all
starve to death. In their central ideological conflict. Trotsky defended his idea of
permanent revolution against Stalin's theory of socialism in one country (that is, in
Russia only). These two rival beliefs were pitted against one another: Trotskyism
with its faith in the revolutionary vocation of the proletariat of the western

125
countries; and Stalinism with its glorification of Russia's socialist destiny. In the
novel Orwell presents this conflict in simpler but entirely accurate words. Orwell
says that according to Nipoleon, what the animals must do was to procure fire-
arms and train themselves in the use of them. According to Snowball, on the other
hand, the animals must send out more and more pigeons in order to stir up rebellion
among the animals on the other farms. Napoleon argued that, if they could not
defend themselves, they were bound to be conquered. Snowball, on the other hand,
argued that if rebellions occurred everywhere, the animals would have no need to
defend themselves. When Snowball comes to the crucial points in his speeches, it is
noticed that the sheep are especially ready to start shouting the slogan, “Four legs
good, two legs bad” in order to interrupt him. This situation corresponds to the
Communist Party Congress in 1927 where, at Stalin's instigation, the suggestions
put forward by the opposition were drowned in the loud uproar and tumult made by
Stalin's supporters. The Trotsky-Stalin conflict reached a crucial point in mid-
1927, after Britain broke diplomatic relations with Russia and thus gave a death-
blow to Stalin's hope of an agreement between the Soviet and the British trade
unions Trotsky and the Opposition issued a declaration attacking Stalin for these
failures; but before they could bring this issue before the Party Congress and
remove Stalin from power, Stalin expelled Trotsky from the Party. This was a vital
moment in Soviet history because it signalled the final defeat of Trotsky. Orwell in
the novel refers to this historical incident when he says that, by the time Snowball
had finished speaking, there was no doubt that the voting by the animals would go
in his favour, but that, just at this moment, Napoleon's dogs attacked Snowball and
forced him to flee from the farm and go into exile. (Napoleon's dogs represent, of
course, Stalin's Secret Police).
Orwell, Not a Champion of Trotsky
Orwell does not, of course, go out of his way in this novel to take the side of
Snowball for Trotsky), because he believed that both Stalin and Trotsky had
betrayed the Revolution. In Orwell's view, Trotsky was as big a villain as Stalin,
even though Trotsky became Stalin's victim. The first note of corruption on Animal
Farm was struck when the pigs started making exclusive use of the cows' milk.
Now, Snowball had been a party to this first act of injustice committed by the
pigs. This means that Orwell by no means thought that Trotsky would prove to be
more fair-minded than Stalin. Trotsky, in Orwell's opinion, was a slightly better
man than Stalin but by no means an ideal hero.

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The Disastrous of Stalin's Forced Collectivization
The three main Russian political events which are represented allegorically and in
detail in Orwell’s novel are: (1) the disastrous results of Stalin's forced
collectivization (1929-33); (2) the Great Purge Trials (1936-38); and (3) the
diplomacy with Germany terminating it; Hitler's invasion of Russia in 1941. In the
novel Orwell writes that, after Snowball's expulsion, the animals were somewhat
surprised to hear Napoleon announcing that the windmill was to be built after all.
The first dismantling of the windmill, for which Napoleon held Snowball
responsible, symbolizes the failure of Stalin's first five-year plan of 1928. The
destructive methods employed by the hens in their protest against Napoleon
symbolize the destructive methods used by the Russian muzhiks or peasants in
1929 to protest against Stalin's forced collectivization of their farms. The hens'
method was to fly up to the rafters and lay their eggs which automatically fell
down to the floor and were smashed. The object of the hens was to defeat
Napoleon's purpose of selling the eggs to human beings in order to make money.
The Russian peasants had, in their desperation, slaughtered their cattle, smashed
their implements, and set fire to their crops. The result of this enormous
destruction by the peasants in Russia was years of appalling hardship, culminating
in the Ukraine famine of 1933. Orwell in his novel refers to this same famine when
he writes that it was being rumoured that the animals were dying of famine and
disease and had resorted to cannibalism and infanticide.
The Great Purge Trials
The Great Purge Trials of the late thirties were the most dramatic political events
in Russia. Stalin wanted to achieve an unrestricted personal dictatorship with a
totality of powers which he did not yet possess in 1934. He therefore ordered the
trials of all those who, in his opinion and in the opinions of his supporters, were
opposed to him. Evidence against those who were brought to trial was cooked and
manufactured, and the accused were speedily executed in large numbers. These
trials are depicted in Animal Farm when, at a well-attended meeting, Napoleon
announces that all those, who had secretly helped Snowball, should come forward
and confess their guilt. A few pigs are the first to come forward. They confess
that they had aided Snowball and, having made this confession, they are
immediately put to death. They are followed by a large number of animals of other
categories and they too are put to death immediately after they have made their

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confessions. A sheep, for instance, confesses that she had urinated in the drinking
pool because she had been instigated by Snowball to do so. She is killed
immediately, like the others who have confessed their guilt. It is evident, of
course, that all these confessions have been made under the threat of force, even
though it is not specifically so stated. A rumour is also circulated by Napoleon that
Snowball had tried to poison Napoleon's food. The result of the Great Purge Trials
in Russia was the slaughter of about three million people. In Animal Farm, all the
guilty animals, as already pointed out, are slain on the spot and at the end there is
a big pile of corpses lying before Napoleon's feet, and the air is heavy with the
smell of blood.
Stalin's Diplomacy, Also Allegorized
After consolidating his domestic power through the Purge Trials, Stalin turned his
attention to the increasing threat from Europe and tried to play off the
democracies against Hitler. He kept his front doors open for negotiations with the
British and the French, but went on having talks with the Germans at the back
door. Similarly, in Orwell's novel, the animals are amazed on discovering that,
during Napoleon's apparent friendship with Mr. Pilkington, Napoleon had really
been in secret agreement with Mr. Frederick. In other words, Napoleon had been
playing a double game. But Napoleon is sadly deceived. Mr. Frederick's bank notes
prove to be forged, and Mr. Frederick attacks Animal Farm without warning and
destroys the windmill. This refers, of course, to the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression
pact of August, 1939, which Hitler (here represented by Mr. Frederick) violated by
suddenly invading Russia in 1941. Hitler's defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad in
January, 1943 was the turning-point of the war. In the same way, in the novel,
when Mr. Frederick's followers are in danger of being surrounded by the animals,
Mr. Frederick shouts to his men to get out while there is still time; and the next
moment Mr. Frederick's forces are in retreat to save their lives.
A Diplomatic Blunder by Stalin, Allegorically Depicted
Orwell also depicts in the noval one of Stalin's diplomatic blunders. The return of
the raven. Moses after an absence of several years and his task about Sugarcandy
Mountain allegorically represents Stalin's strange attempt, in 1944, at a
reconciliation with the Pope. In order to gain Roman Catholic support for his Polish
policy, Stalin held secret meetings with a Roman Catholic priest at a most crucial
moment of the war, though nothing came of this attempt.

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A Disagreement Among the Big Three
Animal Farm ends with an oblique reference to the Teheran Conference of 1943
which took place when Orwell was writing this novel. Orwell felt certain that at
this Conference Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt consciously plotted to divide the
world among themselves. Orwell believed that all three of them were power-
hungry. The disagreement among the three men and the beginning of the cold war
are symbolized in the novel in the situation in which Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington,
each suspicious of the other, play an ace of spades simultaneously.
Orwell's View of Revolutions in General, Also Allegorized
But the allegory in Animal Farm is not confined to a treatment of the Russian
Revolution and the subsequent happenings in Russia. Orwell, while writing this novel,
had all revolutions in mind. Accordingly, the pattern which emerges from this novel
is meant to apply also to the Spanish Civil War and to the French Revolution. Orwell
wishes to convey to us that revolutions always go through predictable stages. A
revolution begins with great idealistic fervour and popular support. The period
immediately following a successful revolution is a stage of bliss. There is a general
feeling that an idealistic vision has been translated into actual reality. The spirit of
brotherhood, fellow-being, and a sense of equality are everywhere apparent. But
slowly the feeling of freedom gives way to the sense of necessity and bondage.
Equality gives way to special privileges for certain people. The next stage is the
rise to power of a new class of persons who, because of their superior skill and
their lust for power, assume command and re-create the class-structure. As more
time passes, the past is forgotten or is deliberately removed from the minds and
memories of the people. The people at large begin to be exploited and victimized
by the power-hungry readers. Equality and justice then fade away, and the State
once again becomes supreme with the establishment of a new dictatorship. This is
exactly what happens on Animal Farm. The rebellion against Mr. Jones is
successful, and equality is established. But, with the passing of time, principles are
twisted, ideals are distorted, and history is rewritten. Innocent beings are cruelly
slaughtered on mere suspicion; and at the end, the most cunning and ingenious
animal, name Napoleon, becomes the undisputed dictator. Even the original name,
Manor Farm, is once again accepted, and is reinstated. When the author, in
conclusion, says that it was impossible to distinguish the pigs from the human
beings, he lifts the lid from his allegory and means to say that all the time he has

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been talking not about pig but about those human beings who first manouvre
themselves into powerful positions and then become the ruling coterie in a country.
Do you think that Animal Farm is a book written with a

purpose? If so what is that purpose? Does the purpose
mar the artistic character of the book?
“Animal Farm” Not a Political Tract But a Work of Art
Orwell wrote Animal Farm with a distinct political purpose. At the same time, the
book is a splendid work of art. In this book Orwell succeeded fully in fusing his
political purpose with his artistic purpose. If Animal Farm did not have an artistic
character, it would have been merely a political tract. As it is, this book conveys a
political message and a political philosophy, and yet attains a superb artistic quality.
An Exposure of the Betrayal of the Russian Revolution
The driving force behind Animal Farm was Orwell’s intense disgust with
totalitarianism, combined with an even stronger disgust with its defenders among
the left-wing intellectuals. From 1935 onwards Orwell had begun to feel more and
more convinced that Russia had taken a wrong path and had become a tyrannical
dictatorship. He was a man of confirmed socialist views. Socialism means, on the
political side, certain basic freedoms such as the freedom of thought, of speech,
and of action ; and, on the economic side, it means State control of the means of
production and an equitable distribution of wealth among the citizens. Now, Orwell
found that Communist Russia had certainly adopted collectivization and State
control of the means of production but that it was denying political justice to the
citizens, depriving them of all the basic freedoms, and denying to them also the
advantages of an equitable distribution of wealth. He therefore thought it
necessary in the interest of world socialism to expose the Communist myth. In the
nineteen-thirties and forties, especially after Russia had come into the war, a large
number of young British intellectuals had joined the British Communist Party or
had become its sympathizers. He strongly disapproved of these British

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intellectuals because in his opinion they were supporting the Stalinist propaganda,
which Orwell thought to be all lies told at the cost of truth, freedom, and
ultimately of literature. He wrote Animal Farm to expose the reality of the Russian
Revolution and the betrayal of the Revolution by the Soviet regime under Stalin.
The Emergence of Oligarchical Collectivism
The rise of totalitarianism in Europe in the nineteen-thirties had greatly disturbed

Orwell. The Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy had developed in dangerous ways
which reminded Orwell of the hierarchical absolutism of the Roman Catholic
Church. He noted particularly their pyramidal structure and the emergence of a
new ruling caste to direct it. Such political systems, he thought, might become
permanent and universal. He thought that the attempt to establish the
dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia had resulted in the rule of a select class
of people, enforcing their will by tyrannical methods. The Russian Communists, in
his opinion, had developed into a permanent ruling caste or oligarchy. A caste-
system joined to a collectivism economy was what he also saw taking shape in
Germany. Thus he found that the two regimes (Communism in Soviet Russia and
Nazism in Germany), having started from opposite ends, had rapidly evolved
towards the same system or account of a form of "oligarchical collectivism". This
system would, in his view, tend to the emergence of a slave State which had every
chance of becoming permanent. As early as 1939 Orwell had felt that men's minds
might be so manipulated as to guarantee their total submission for all time. It
might become possible for the dictators to produce a breed of men who do not
wish for liberty. He wrote Animal Farm to demonstrate how the Russian Revolution
aiming at liberation and freedom had been betrayed and how the aims and
principles behind that Revolution had been distorted and twisted in order to pave
the way of the emergence of a ruthless dictatorship under Stalin.
Orwell's Reaction to the Great Purges of 1936-38
Animal Farm is a document of disillusionment with Stalinism, resulting from the

spectacle of the Stalinist Great Purges of 1936-38, the repercussions of which
Orwell had experienced in Catalonia (in Spain). As a sensitive man of integrity, he
reacted to the purges with great anger and horror. His conscience could not be
soothed by the Stalinist justifications and sophisms which soothed the consciences
of the less scrupulous people.

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The Stages of a Revolution
Although Animal Farm is an attack on the Soviet Union under Stalin, it is something
more than that. Orwell's purpose in this book was more general. Orwell was
interested in tracing the inevitable stages of any revolution. The literal level of the
story is almost exclusively based on Soviet history. But although Russia is the
book's immediate target, Orwell said that the book was intended as a satire on
dictatorship in general. Orwell has been faithful to the details of Soviet history,
but he did not hesitate to change the chronology of events and to modify some of
the important elements of that history. Orwell wished to convey to us that
revolutions always go through several predictable stages. A revolution begins with
great idealistic fervour and popular support. It is energized by golden expectations
of justice and equality. The period immediately following a successful revolution is
one of great rejoicing. There is a general sense of triumphant achievement. The
spirit of brotherhood, fellow-feeling, and equality is everywhere apparent. Old laws
and institutions are abolished and replaced by a general concern for the common
good. But slowly the feeling of freedom gives way, to the sense of necessity and
bondage. Rigid institutions begin gradually to come into existence. The ideal of
equality begins to crumble and to give way to special privileges for certain people.
The result is the emergence of a new class of persons who, because of their
superior skill and their lust for power, assume command and re-create the class-
structure. This class of persons then begins to assert its powers against any
possible resistance or opposition, and it does not shrink from using threats and
terror. As more time passes, the past is forgotten or is deliberately removed from
the minds and memories of the people. The new leadership acquires all the
characteristics of the old, pre-revolutionary leadership, while the people at large
are forced into a state of servitude. All sort of excuses are invented by the
leaders to explain their divergence from the original ideals. The people in general
begin to be exploited partly because of their stupidity and partly because they are
victimized by the power-hungry leaders. The only surviving sign of the revolution
then, is its rhetoric and its story which is now altered to suit the purposes of the
leaders. Equality and justice fade away, and the State and its leadership become
supreme. When Orwell wrote Animal Farm, he had begun to feel that Soviet
society had reached this stage, and that Stalin was exercising power in a most
arbitrary and ruthless manner. He found that in Russia under Stalin despotism
employed constant deceit to keep the people under control and that it also

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employed a secret police organization, terrorism, and mock trials, making the
liquidation of supposed opponents possible.
"Animal Farm", an Allegorical Satire
Now, if Orwell had expounded his political views about Stalinist methods, and about
revolutions in general in the manner in which his views have been summarized
above, the resulting work would have been a political tract or pamphlet, But Orwell
wished to convey his ideas to his readers in an artistic manner. In a political
pamphlet, ideas are propounded in a strictly rational and logical manner. In a
political pamphlet, facts and figures are offered to the readers to mould their
minds and influence their judgments; statistics are presented; arguments are given
and possible objections are answered. The writer of a political pamphlet may
introduce passion into his argument, but logic and reason are his mainstay. A work
of art, on the other hand, is imaginative, (even fanciful) and emotional, and stirs
the reader's feelings and affections. Orwell wanted to make the communication of
his ideas to the readers an interesting affair. In order to do so, he employed the
allegorical method of writing, making use of the well-known genre of the animal
fable. Most of the characters in this book are animals—pigs, horses, cows, sheep,
pigeons and some of these animals symbolize certain particular historical
personalities. Not only that; Orwell employs the satirical mode of writing to
condemn and attack the wrong-headed and ill-conceived policies of some of those
historical personalities. The satirical method is always more interesting than the
method of a direct and blunt attack upon a target. Animal Farm is thus an
allegorical satire, and belongs therefore to the class of literary writing and not to
the class of political pamphleteering. A political pamphlet is generally a dull and
tedious piece of writing. An allegorical satire, like Swift's Gulliver's Travels, can
be made a fascinating affair.
The Allegorical Significance of Characters and Events
The allegorical significance of the characters and events in Animal Farm is not
difficult to find. At the very outset we meet Mr. Jones who symbolizes Capitalism
(or the Russian Czar), while the animals whom also we meet at the very outset
symbolize the Communists. The rebellion by all the animals against Mr. Jones
symbolizes the October, 1917 Revolution in Russia, as a consequence of which the
Bolshevists came into power under the leadership of Lenin who was soon
afterwards followed by Stalin and Trotsky. Napoleon the pig in the story

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represents Stalin, while Snowball the pig represents Trotsky. The pigs among the
animals symbolize the Bolshevists who seized power in Russia after the overthrow
of the Czar and the overthrow of the Kerensky government in 1917. Squealer,
another pig, represents the Communist propaganda machinery (or, perhaps, the
servile Russian Press whose function it is to justify and defend all governmental
policies). The neighbouring farmers are western armies who tried to support the
Czarists against the Communists. The wave of rebelliousness which sweeps the
other farms in the country symbolizes the unsuccessful revolutions in Hungary and
Germany in 1919 and 1923 respectively. The hoof and horn on the flag of the
animals represent the hummer and sickle on the Russian flag. The Spontaneous
Demonstrations symbolize the Russian May Day celebrations. The "Order of the
Green Banner” symbolizes the special committee of the pigs presided over by
Napoleon symbolizes the Russian politbureau. The revolt of the hens symbolizes
sailors’ rebellion at the naval base of Kronstad (in 1921).
A Serious Political Thesis, Presented in a Gay, Witty Manner
Orwell has written his animal fable in such a way that most of the incidents in the
story correspond to certain actual events which has taken place in Russia, and
Orwell manages to make his account of the events very interesting and amusing.
Even T.S. Eliot, who could not approve of Animal Farm for purposes of publication,
found this book “a distinguished piece of writing”, and said that the fable had very
skillfully been handled and that the narrative kept the reader’s interest
throughout Although Orwell’s political thesis is a serious and weighty one, the book
is a gay one, animated by abundance of wit and humour. The technique employed by
Orwell is similar to that which had been employed in ancient times by the Greek
writer Aesop and which was subsequently perfected by the French writer, La
Fontaine. The war of intervention, the new economic plan, the first five-year plan,
the expulsion of Trotsky and the seizing of supreme power by Stalin, the Moscow
Trials and the Great Purges of 1936-38, the Hitler-Stalin pact, the German
invasion of Russia—all these have amusingly been depicted in this animal story. The
driving away of Snowball by Napoleon's fierce dogs signifies the expulsion of
Trotsky from Russia under Stalin's orders. The killing of a large number of animals,
who have been made to confess their crimes, corresponds to the Great Purges in
Russia under Stalin. The understanding reached between Mr. Frederick and
Napoleon in the story corresponds to the Hitler-Stalin pact. The invasion of Animal
Farm by Mr. Frederick and his men corresponds to Hitler's invasion of Stalin's

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Russia. The pigs sitting down to drink with the human farmers at the end of the
story is meant to represent the Teheran Conference, when Stalin met the Allied
leaders (Churchill and Roosevelt). The building of the windmill symbolizes the
technological advances made by Russia. The food shortages of Animal Farm
symbolize the actual food shortages which took place in Russia several times.
The Emergence of a Privileged Class and of a Ruthless Dictator
But the most amusing part of this allegorical satire is the
manner in which the pigs begin to claim certain privileges. At first, milk and apples
are reserved exclusively for them. Then they begin to direct and supervise the
work which is to be done by all the other animals. Next comes the stage when the
pigs, who have already been granted certain special rights, move into Mr. Jones's
farmhouse in order to live there. This process goes on till the pigs become the
most important and privileged class, corresponding to the Russian top leadership
and the Russians bureaucracy. Even more glaring is the fact that Napoleon begins
to deviate from, and violate, the Seven Commandments till only the Seventh
Commandment remains.
and that also in a completely altered form: "All Animals Are Equal But Some
Animals Are More Equal.” Thus the revolutionary ideals of equality, comradeship,
and an equitable distribution of wealth are all shelved by the pigs under the
leadership of Napoleon; and even history is re-written to suit Napoleon’s selfish
purposes. All this symbolizes the emergence of a powerful bureaucracy or oligarchy
in Russia and the rise of Stalin to the position of a ruthless dictator who bade
good-bye to the ideals which had inspired the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The Animals, Thoroughly Convincing
Orwell in this book fused his artistic and political purposes so well that the animals
are thoroughly convincing on the literal level. His precise portrayal of the beasts is
based on his actual experience as a farmer at a place called Wallington where he
had lived from 1936 to 1940 and had kept a number of animals. Orwell himself
afterwards said that the most important animals in the story were the pigs and
their dogs who are frightening and ferocious. Orwell has made good use of the
repulsive associations of the swine which had figured in Homer's Odyssey. He was
also influenced by the talking horses in Swift's book Gulliver's Travels.

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Compactness in the Structure; and Clarity of Style
Orwell's artistic purpose appears also in the manner in which he has built up the
plot and shown his craftsmanship. Animal Farm has a tight structure characterized
by economy and brevity. There is absolutely no surplusage or superfluity of any
kind in the book. Every line contributes to the development of the plot or to the
portrayal of character or to the allegorical significance. This structural
compactness is, indeed, one of the most outstanding features of the book. All the
incidents of the novel occur at the same place, namely Animal Farm. The events are
spread over a period of three years after which there is a gap of several years
before the final state of affairs on Animal Farm is depicted in the final chapter.
The novel produces an effect of concentration. Another feature of the book is the
extreme simplicity of the language employed. Orwell compared a good style of
writing to a window pane. Here his style is actually like a window pane because of
its clarity and transparency.
''Everything he wrote was aimed at provoking people to

think about things he felt were important.” What were the
important things Orwell dealt with in Animal Farm?
Not a Fairy Story But an Allegorical Satire
Orwell described Animal Farm as a fairy story. But to call this book a fairy story is
a misnomer. A fairy story contains supernatural beings as well as human beings, and
sometimes only supernatural beings. The supernatural beings include fairies, genii,
and evil spirits, all of whom make use of magic.
In a fairy story there are such miracles as the flying carpet and the magic crystal.
We do not have any of this paraphernalia in Animal Farm. In fact, magic, which
forms the core of a fairy story, does not figure here at all. Orwell called this book
a fairy story because there are in it animals who can talk, who can read, and who
can manage their affairs just like human beings. But an animal story belongs to a
different genre from the genre of a fairy story. Animal Farm is an allegory in
which we meet human beings in the guise of animals. It is a serious, almost grim

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book despite its wit, humour, and gaiety. It is an allegorical satire which gives as a
deep insight into Orwell's political thinking. In this book Orwell appears as a
political thinker as well as a story-teller. In writing this allegorical satire, Orwell's
purpose was to reveal to us his views about current politics and his reactions to the
political events which had taken place in the recent past and which were taking
place as he wrote.
Orwell's Opposition to Totalitarianisms
First of all, we find that Animal Farm clearly reveals Orwell's opposition to the
totalitarian form of government. Italy had become a totalitarian State under
Mussolini in 1919. In the ninteen-thirties, Germany and the Soviet Union began to
develop in dangerous ways which reminded Orwell of the hierarchical absolutism of
the Roman Catholic Church. He noted particularly the pyramidal structure of the
governments in these two countries and the emergence of a new ruling class to
direct it. Such political systems, he thought, might become permanent and
universal. The Russian Communists under Stalin had, in Orwell's view, developed
into a permanent ruling caste or oligarchy. Russia had developed a system of
government which could be described as "oligarchical collectivism", The phrase
"oligarchical collectivism" was first used by Orwell for Russia and Germany in 1940.
In Animal Farm, Orwell demonstrates, though in a disguised manner, the process by
which a revolution aiming at the attainment of the ideals of freedom, justice,
equality, fellow-feeling and comradeship may achieve these ideals but may soon
afterwards shelve and forsake these ideals so that a new governing clique emerges
and rules the country in the same dictatorial manner in which it had been ruled by
the pre-revolutionary government. The animals on Mr. Jones's Manor Farm
overthrow Mr. Jones who represents the autocratic Czar of Russia and who
represents also the forces of Capitalism. They then begin to administer the farm
in a democratic manner and in the spirit of the ideals of equality, justice, and
comradeship. Soon afterwards, however, the pigs emerge as a privileged class, who
enjoy certain privileges on the basis of their superior intelligence and skill. The pig
named Napoleon manages, by deceit, by cunning, and by force, to become the
undisputed leader of the farm. By the time the story ends, Napoleon, assisted by
the whole class of pigs, has become an absolute dictator, while the other animals
have to work as hard and have to suffer the same kind of injustice as they had to
endure during the tyrannical administration of Mr. Jones. Of course, Orwell
narrates the whole process of this transformation in a most witty and amusing

137
manner. But he leaves us in no doubt about his disgust with the emergence of a new
dictator on the farm, and about his aversion to totalitarianism.
His Attitude to Communism in General and to Stalinist Russia in Particular
Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a critique of totalitarianism with a special and

specific reference to -Communist Russia under Stalin's regime. Animal Farm is a
clever satire on the betrayal of the Russian Communist Revolution by Stalin and his
henchmen. The struggle of the farm animals in having driven away their human
exploiters to establish a free and equal community takes the form of a most
skilfully worked-out history of Soviet Russia from 1917 upto the time of the
Teheran Conference. Inspired by the teachings of Old Major, the animals establish
their own Utopian community. The control of the affairs on the farm comes into
the hands of the pigs, and particularly into the hands of a large, fierce-looking
boar called Napoleon who is able shortly afterwards to get rid of a rival boar by
the name of Snowball. Napoleon drives away Snowball from the farm just as Stalin
had driven away Trotsky into exile. The pigs begin by appropriating the milk and
the apples produced on the farm to their own use, denying any share in them to the
other animals. Gradually, all the Seven Commandments, which had been formulated
at the outset for a democratic and just functioning of the farm, are eroded,
distorted, and modified till they are reduced to only one Commandment which also
undergoes a radical change and which now reads as follows: "All Animals Are Equal
But Some Are More Equal." While this process of the modification of and deviation
from the Seven Commandments goes on, the pigs acquire more and more privileges
such as living in Mr. Jones's farmhouse and sleeping in his beds, and Napoleon
himself consolidates his position by liquidating, with the help of his fierce dogs and
in a savage manner, his supposed opponents. This liquidation of his suspected
opponents by Napoleon corresponds to the Moscow Trials of the suspected enemies
of the Communist regime and the executions of the accused under the orders of
Stalin during the years 1936-38. The executions ordered by Stalin had come to be
known as the "Great Purges" and had brought a lot of notoriety to Stalin. The pigs
acquiring more and more privileges correspond to the bureaucracy or the oligarchy
which had begun to flourish during Stalin's regime and which exists even today in
Russia in much the same form.

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His Hatred of Communist Propaganda
As already pointed out, the Seven Commandments are altered to give legitimacy to
the increasingly tyrannical acts of the leader, Napoleon. Significantly, the task of
explaining the motives of the regime and persuading the animals that everything is
being done for their welfare falls to a pig called Squealer who symbolizes either
the propaganda machinery maintained by Stalin or the servile Russian Press
represented by the Soviet News Agency called "Tass" whose function even today is
to support, defend, and justify the deeds and the policies of the Russian leaders.
It is Squealer whose false logic and sophisms turn black into white for the rest of
the animals. Squealer commits all those evil acts which Orwell had found and
denounced in the Press reporting of the Spanish Civil War and in the leftist
apologies for the Soviet no-war pact with Germany. Orwell hated this kind of
misleading propaganda in which the Communist regimes have always excelled.
Orwell's Opposition to the Debasement of Art
Orwell also takes care through the song "Beasts of England" and the figure of
Minimus the poet, to see the uses which a totalitarian regime makes of art. Old
Major launched the rebellion by his singing of a song which he had heard in his
infancy. Later, Minimus composes a new anthem which is less appealing to the
animals than "Beasts of England" but which is the only one now sanctioned by the
leaders, just as in the Soviet Union a new anthem replaced La Internationale.
Napoleon feared, of course, that if Major's song could stir the animals to rebellion
once, it might do so again and that it might serve also as a reminder of a hopeful
past which Napoleon wants the animals to forget. Minimus also writes a poem in
honour of Comrade Napoleon just as a hymn a praise of Stalin had been written. It
is evident that Orwell strongly disapproved of art and literature being debased by
the Communist leadership which uses them for its own glorification and also to
divert the attention of the people from political issues of a controversial nature.
Orwell's Socialistic Ideas in Conflict with Stalin's Policies
Orwell wrote Animal Farm chiefly to expose the Stalin myth in the interest of
world socialism. In the nineteen-thirties and forties, especially after Russia had
become involved in World War II, a large number of younger British intellectuals
had joined the British Communist Party or had become its sympathizers. Orwell
strongly disapproved of all these British intellectuals because, in his opinion, they

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were supporting the Stalinist propaganda at the cost of truth, freedom, and
ultimately of literature. He wrote Animal Farm to expose the reality of the Russian
Revolution and the betrayal of the Revolution by the Soviet regime under Stalin.
However, Orwell did not on the basis of his disgust with Russian Communism, feel
any urge to give rap his socialist ideas or to join the Tories in England. He
continued to support the Left of the English Labour Party even though he became a
strong and determined foe of Communism as practised in Soviet Russia under
Stalin. Animal Farm is a book which brings into a clear focus Orwell's hatred of,
and antagonism towards, the working of the Communist system in Russia. Although
it is a gay book, yet the inspiration for it came from Orwell's indignation at, and
disgust with, Russian Communism.
Orwell's View of Revolutions in General
Although Animal Farm is specifically an attack on Russian Communism, especially

under Stalin, Orwell's purpose was more general. Orwell was interested in tracing
the inevitable stages of any revolution, and so he shaped his animal fable
accordingly. The pattern which emerges from this book is meant to apply not only
to the Russian Revolution but also to the Spanish Civil War of the nineteen-thirties
and to the French Revolution of 1789. (It is significant that the central character
in the book has been given the name of Napoleon). Orwell wishes to convey to us
that revolutions always go through certain predictable stages. A revolution begins
with great idealistic fervour and popular support. During the period immediately
following a successful revolution, there is a general feeling of brotherhood, fellow-
feeling, and equality among the people. But slowly things begin to change. Equality
begins to give way to special privileges for certain people. In course of time, a new
class of persons rises to the top because of their superior skill and their lust for
power. With the passing of more time, the past is forgotten or is deliberately
removed from the minds and memories of the people. The new leadership is as
dictatorial and arbitrary as the government which had been overthrown by the
revolutionaries. Equality and justice fade away, and the State becomes totalitarian
in character.
Power Tends to Corrupt: Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Although Animal Farm is to be interpreted in terms of Soviet history, and although

Major, Napoleon, and Snowball represent Marx, Stalin, and Trotsky respectively,
the story has some application to the western countries also. The barbs of

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criticism aimed at Russia are manifest, of course, but Orwell has a judgment to
offer about the west also. After all, the pigs do not turn into alien monsters; they
come to resemble those bitter rivals, Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick, who
represent the Capitalists and the Nazis respectively. Orwell suggests that the
three leading world powers (the U.S.A., Britain, and the Soviet Union) are hateful
tyrannies, and that the failure of the Russian Revolution is not to be seen
exclusively in terms of ideology but as a result of the famous maxim: "Power tends
to corrupt ; absolute power corrupts absolutely." The initial spark of a revolution
and the original intention of the revolutionaries may have been an ideal of the good
life, but the result is always the same, namely tyranny. Fascism, Nazism, and
Capitalism are as evil as Communism. They are all illusions which are inevitably used
as a means of satisfying the greed of the ruling clique and its lust for power.
The Communists' Exploitation of People's Religious Belief
According to Orwell, even religion is employed by the tyrants as a device to divert

the minds of the people who are being subjected to tyranny and injustice. Moses,
the tame raven, is a symbol of religion. He is always croaking about the sweet and
eternal life on Sugarcandy Mountain. He flies away when Mr. Jones has been
expelled from the farm, but he returns when Napoleon has established his tyranny.
Orwell, in his portrayal of Moses, has satirized religious orthodoxy. The animals
dislike him because he does no work and because he is a spy and a tale-bearer. But
he is a clever talker, and they find some comfort in his tales of Sugarcandy
Mountain where all animals would go after death. Moses is tolerated by Napoleon
and is permitted to live on the farm when he returns after an absence of several
years. This corresponds to the attitude of toleration which the Soviet Union
adopted towards the Orthodox Christian Church some time after the Revolution.
Moses also represents the Reman Catholic Church; so that the tolerance with
which he is treated on the farm under Napoleon corresponds to Stalin's attitude
of indulgence towards the Roman Catholic priest through whom he wanted to come
to an understanding with the Pope in Rome. Many of the animals secretly believe
that there is some truth in Moses' tales of a better world, arguing that they
deserve some compensation for the hardships of the earthly life. Thus Moses
serves to divert the attention of the people from their earthly difficulties to the
comforts of an after-life. It is evident that Orwell has no sympathy with such
religious beliefs or with the comfort they offer to the people.

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Communist Russia’s Good-Bye to Egalitarian Socialism
Orwell knew that the process by which the revolution in Animal Farm developed and
then failed was understandable and perhaps even inevitable. Writing about the
early leaders of the Russian Revolution, he said that the dictatorship of the
proletariat had come to mean the dictatorship of a handful of intellectuals, ruling
through terrorism. The Russian Communists, he said, had developed into a
permanent ruling caste. As they could not tolerate the growth of opposition, they
did not permit criticism, even just criticism, of their policies and actions. The
result was that the dictatorship in Russia had moved far, far away from egalitarian
socialism with which the Russian Revolution had started. Orwell himself had begun
life as a socialist, and he remained a firm socialist till the end. His deepest regret
was that the Russian Revolution, which had as its ideal egalitarian socialism, had
completely departed from, and violated, that ideal in a most brazen manner, giving
way to the emergence of a totalitarian State employing brutal, ruthless, and
barbaric methods to keep the dictator in power.
The Power of Propaganda
Another important idea in Animal Farm relates to the power of political

propaganda. Propaganda plays a very effective role in moulding public opinion. Every
government, but more especially a totalitarian government, carries on propaganda
to support its policies and to defend and justify its actions, no matter how wrong-
headed those policies may be and how unjust and cruel those actions may be.
Squealer in this novel has the power to turn black into white. Every decision which
Napoleon takes in violation of the Seven Commandments is defended and justified,
by Squealer; and Squealer is so successful that he is even able to make the animals
think that their memories are playing them tricks. He is even able to convince the
animals that the Commandment forbidding the animals to sleep in beds had actually
forbidden sleeping in beds with sheets. Similarly, he is able to convince them that
the Commandment forbidding the animals not to kill one another had really
forbidden killing without cause. He reads out inflated figures of food-production
to convince the animals that nothing has gone wrong with the government's
functioning even when the rations of the animals are reduced.

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Orwell, a Liberal and Progressive Political Thinker
Orwell creates an impression upon us of being a very liberal and progressive

thinker. He shows his opposition to all the reactionary forces and reactionary
ideas. His opposition to capitalism shows his progressive outlook. His opposition to
totalitarianism shows his democratic outlook. His opposition to economic inequality
shows his socialistic outlook. In all these cases, we find him poking fun at
orthodoxy, conservatism, and dictatorship. The episode describing Boxer's sad
fate shows his sense of humanity and his sympathetic nature because Boxer
represents the hard-worked members of the proletariat. Thus our reading of
Animal Farm raises Orwell in our estimation because we find ourselves in contact
with the mind of a man who is a lover, upholder, and champion of freedom,
democracy, economic justice, and fellow-feeling.
What is meant by satire? In what sense is Animal Farm a

satire and what does it satirize?
The Meaning of Satire
A satire may roughly and briefly be defined as a humorous or witty exposture of

human follies and vices. By means of a satire an author can strip the veil from
things, and expose the reality of individuals, communities, groups of people,
institutions, etc. A satirist generally employs irony, mockery, ridicule, and sarcasm
as his weapons of attack. Swift is regarded as the greatest satirist in prose.
His book Gulliver Travels is a great satirical work. It is written in the form of a
travel-book. Swift adopted the form of a travelogue because travel-books had
been very popular for a long time in those days. Swift's purpose in writing this
book was to lash all mankind for their follies, vices, absurdities, and evil ways, and
to bring about some reform if possible. Gulliver's Travels is an allegorical satire
because Swift does not attack persons and institutions directly but in a veiled
manner. All the persons and institutions and other aspects of life attacked by
Swift are presented in this book in disguise.

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"Animal Farm", an Allegorical Satire
Orwell too shows himself as a great satirist in Animal Farm. Animal Farm too is an
allegorical satire. But the scope of Animal Farm is very limited by comparison with
Gulliver's Travels. Swift's book attacks all mankind, but Orwell's book is a political
satire which attacks certain political institutions and certain selected political
personalities and events. Besides, Orwell's book is written in the form of an animal
fable. Orwell's object in writing this book also was to reform the thinking of those
who had been misguided or who had formed wrong judgments about certain political
systems and political personalities.
A Satire on Revolutions (and on the Russian Revolution)
Animal Farm is a satire or the course taken by revolutions in general and by the
Russian Revolution of October, 1917 in particular. It is a satire on the process by
which a revolution is effected and by which it is afterwards betrayed. This book
has a particular and pointed reference to the Communist regime in Russia under
Stalin who came to power soon after the death in 1924 of Lenin. Orwell had felt
much disgusted with the arbitrary and brutal methods which Stalin had been
adopting to consolidate his power and with the way in which Stalin had betrayed
the ideals of the Russian Revolution to establish a totalitarian regime in the
country. Stalin had employed cunning, deceit, fraud, and force to achieve his
purposes; and Orwell wrote Animal Farm to poke fun at Stalin and Stalin's methods
and to degrade Stalin in our eyes. His object was to open the eyes of his readers
to the truth about Stalin and also about revolutions in general.
A Satire in the Form of an Animal Fable
As already pointed out, the satire here takes the form of an animal fable. The main
characters are the animals of whom the pigs are the most important. From among
the class of the pigs, three leaders emerge. These leaders are Napoleon, Snowball,
and Squealer. The principal targets of satire are Napoleon, who represents Stalin,
and Squealer who represents the Communist propaganda machinery, especially the
servile Soviet Press. Another target of satire is Moses, the raven, who represents
religious institutions like the Roman Catholic Church.

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A Satire on the Methods Employed By Stalin
Napoleon is the chief target of satire in Animal Farm. This pig has r reputation for
getting things done in accordance with his own wishes. He is contrasted with
Snowball who is candid and open in his methods, white Napoleon works in devious
ways. Snowball can impress the animals with his eloquent, speeches and can sway
their judgment. But Napoleon works behind the scenes and is able to canvass
support for himself in a secretive manner. Napoleon is especially successful with
the sheep who are trained to bleat a slogan "Four legs good, two legs bad" and who
interrupt the animals' meetings by their loud bleating whenever Snowball is about
to score a point against Napoleon. Napoleon has also secretly reared a number of
dogs and trained them to obey his orders. By his cunning and by his use of the
fierce-looking dogs, Napoleon is able to drive Snowball away from the farm and to
become the sole leader of the animals. All this is Orwell's satirical method of
informing us that Stalin had used deceit and the force of his secret police in order
to pass an order of banishment against his rival Trotsky. After Trotsky had been
sent into exile, Stalin became the sole dictator of Russia. Thus the power-politics
rampant in Russia of that time is also satirized here.
The Emergence of a Privileged Class and of Napoleon as a Dictator
The rest of the story shows how Napoleon, once he has got rid of his rival
Snowball, consolidates his power on the farm and becomes an autocratic ruler. By
having driven away Mr. Jones, the real owner of the farm, the animals had
liberated themselves from human tyranny and become their own masters. The
animals had now looked forward to a democratic functioning of the farm in the
light of the Seven Commandments which had been formulated soon after the
expulsion of Mr. Jones. But Napoleon now begins a systematic attempt to shelve
the Seven Commandments and to depart from the ideals and principles of the
successful rebellion which had been accomplished by the animals against Mr. Jones.
The first decision taken by Napoleon, when Snowball was yet a respected leader on
the farm, was that milk and apples would be reserved exclusively for the pigs. This
decision was a clear departure from the concept of the equality of all the animals.
Even Snowball had on this point agreed with Napoleon. As a result of this
departure from one of the Commandments, the pigs emerged as a privileged class.
The privileges accorded to the pigs now go on increasing as a result of further
announcements made by Napoleon when he has become the sole leader. In course

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of time Napoleon himself becomes more and more powerful. He abolishes the
system of all the animals meeting together to discuss the affairs of the farm and
to take all decisions pertaining to the farm. Now a committee of pigs is formed,
with Napoleon as its president, to take all decisions which are then merely
announced to the other animals. Thus both the principle of equality and the
principle of democracy have been forsaken. A time comes when Napoleon decides
that the pigs would begin living in Mr. Jones's farmhouse and sleeping in the beds
in which human beings used to sleep. This is another glaring departure from the
Seven Commandments. Napoleon then carries out a purge on the farm. All those
animals whom he suspects of being his opponents are made to confess certain
crimes which actually they have not committed at all, and who are then put to
death by Napoleon's fierce dogs under Napoleon's orders. Here is grossly violated
yet another Commandment which originally was: "No animal shall kill any other
animal," but which now reads: "No animal shall kill any other animal without cause."
Subsequently, the pigs, led by Napoleon, begin to drink whisky and to brew beer at
the farm. In this way some more privileges have been conferred upon the pigs.
Then comes a time when Napoleon decides that the pigs would walk on their hind
legs and hold whips in their trotters in order to supervise the work of the other
animals. This is, of course, the height of absurdity, and we are greatly amused by
this decision of Napoleon's. Napoleon himself now wears the clothes of human
beings, dons a hat, and keeps a tobacco-pipe in his mouth. Here, perhaps, the satire
reaches its climax. Napoleon, and with him all the pigs, have bidden good-bye to
most of the ideals of the rebellion. But more is yet to come. The Seventh
Commandment which promised equality to the animals is now altered to read as
follows: "All Animals Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal.” There is a lot
of irony in Napoleon's violations of the Seven Commandments. The irony arises
from the contrast between what the animals had looked forward to and what
Napoleon has actually done on the farm. Irony, as we know, is one of the chief
weapons of satire.
A Satire on Stalin’s Betrayal of the Ideals of the Russian Revolution
Napoleon’s deviations from and violations of the Seven Commandments are

intended by Orwell as satire on Stalin’s betrayal of the ideals of the Russian
Revolution. The Russian Revolution had promised equality, comradeship, social and
economic justice, and the freedom of thought, the freedom of speech, and the
freedom of action to the citizens. But, after coming to power, Stalin curbed all the

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freedoms and soon suppressed them altogether. Stalin, likewise, rejected the
concept of equality and economic justice, and allowed a privileged class to emerge
in the country and to rule the country under his direct orders. This privileged class
in Russia was, of course, the bureaucracy which enjoyed many privileges, while the
common people had often to face shortages of food and other commodities. Stalin
had also liquidated his supposed opponents through wholesale executions of the
suspects, these suspects were first forced to confess the crimes which they had
never committed, and were then sentenced to death. This drastic step was taken
by Stalin during 1936-38. The Moscow Trials of these years caused a wave of
terror all over the country. The executions of a large number of people tried
during these years came to be known as the ''Great Purges". Napoleon's absurd
method of adding to his dignity also corresponds to Stalin's efforts at self-
aggrandisement. In short, all the policies, decisions, and actions of Napoleon, which
excite our mirth and laughter, are based on the policies, decisions, and actions of
Stalin, though there is certainly an element of horror in the mass executions. The
whole portrayal of Napoleon and his emergence as the dictator of Animal Farm
shows through mockery and ridicule, Stalin's betrayal of the Revolution and his
emergence as the undisputed and unchallenged dictator of Russia. Stalin re-
established totalitarianism in the country within a short period of about twenty
years after the overthrow of the totalitarianism represented by Nicholas, the
Czar of Russia. But Orwell also implies that most revolutions follow the same
course which the Russian Revolution took. Thus Orwell's conclusion is applicable to
the French Revolution and also to the Spanish Civil War.
A Satire on the Russian Propaganda Machinery
Squealer amuses us greatly by the manner in which he defends and justifies the
policies and decisions of Napoleon. For instance, he amuses us greatly when he tells
the animals that there are certain substances in milk and in apples which are
essential to the health of the pigs who are the brain-workers on the farm. He
amuses us when he tells the animals that, by abolishing the democratic procedure,
Napoleon has taken extra labour upon himself, and when he adds that Napoleon still
believes in the equality of all animals. Squealer amuses us when he tells the animals
that Napoleon's original opposition to the windmill had merely been a matter of
"tactics" to get rid of Snowball who was a dangerous character and a bad influence.
Squealer repeats the word "tactics" several times, skipping from side to side and
whisking his tail as is his habit. Indeed, Squealer abases us every time he tells a

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brazen lie to support and justify Napoleon. When the rations of the animals
have been reduced on account of a food shortage, while maintaining the rations of
the pigs and the dogs, Squealer says that a strict equality in rations is
contrary to the principles of Animalism. Squealer's perverted logic and his
sophisms are one of the chief sources of humour in this book. He carries on his
false propaganda against Snowball in a most shameless manner. One of his most
amusing lies is that the van, which had taken away the sick Boxer had originally
belonged to a horse-slaughterer but was now the property of a veterinary
doctor who had yet to order the rubbing out of the horse-slaughterer's name
from the van and the painting of his own name in place of it. As has already been
pointed out, the portrayal of Squealer is meant to satirize the Russian Press,
represented by the News Agency called “Tass” which always lends its support to
official pronouncements and decisions. The press in Russia is servile to the
dictator just as Squealer on Animal Farm is servile to his boss Napoleon.
The Use of Religion For Political Purposes, Satirized
The portrayal of Moses is intended to satirize religion and the use of religion for
political purposes. Moses is a spy and a tale-bearer and he talks about an animals'
paradise called Sugarcandy Mountain. We are indeed very amused by Moses' talk
about Suearcandy Mountain because we know that the priests of all religions
beguile their audiences by talking to them about the joys of heavenly life which,
however, is only a myth. Napoleon’s tolerance of Moses on the farm was intended
by Orwell to ridicule Stalin's attitude of indulgence towards a Roman Catholic
priest through whom Stalin wanted to establish friendly Pope in Rome.
Shirkers, Satirized
There are workers and shirkers in every society. Boxer and Clover in this story
represent the honest and conscientious workers, while Mollie represents the
shirkers. The portrayal of Mollie is satirical in intention. Mollie avoids doing any
work on the farm. She is fond of wearing red ribbons in her white mane and
chewing a lump of sugar. She is also vain about her appearance and often stands on
the bank of a pool, admiring her own reflection in the water. She is cowardly too,
because when a battle has to be fought against Mr. Jones and his men, she runs
away into the stable and buries her head in the hay. Boxer's adopting the motto
"Napoleon is right”, and his meeting a sad fate when he has become useless from
Napoleon's point of view, are a satire on the treatment which the common people

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receive in Russia when they can serve the nation no longer. Boxer’s fate
symbolically conveys to us the callousness of a dictator like Stalin.
Account for the popularity of Animal Farm.
The Appeal of "Animal Farm" as a Children's Story
Animal Farm is regarded as one of the best literary works produced during the
first half of the present century. This was the book which brought both fame and
money to Orwell whose previous works had not aroused the enthusiasm or the
admiration which they deserved. Animal Farm acquired an enormous reputation and
popularity. Its popularity is due to several reasons.
In the first place, this book can be read as a straight animal story. Of course, as
an animal story, it appeals largely to children and teenagers, though the grown-up
people are also attracted by an animal story to some extent because the childish
element survives in grown-up people also. The story of pigs, horses, cows, pigeons,
etc. having the capacity to talk, to read, to manage their own affairs just like
human beings would naturally arouse the curiosity of the children and arouse a good
deal of their interest. Animal stones have been popular ever since the time of the
ancient Greek author Aesop who was probably the founder of this genre. There are
a number of situitions in which the animals behave just like human beings, and this
capacity of the animals to act intelligently or cunningly and to take decisions is
bound to appeal to the child-mind. The animals are seen harvesting hay, building a
windmill, and carrying out other tasks on the farm. The animals are capable of
going on strike just as human labourers do. For instance, the hens begin to smash
their eggs by laying them on the rafters from where these eggs fall down to the
floor. The hens do this in protest against a certain decision taken by their ruler,
Napoleon.
The Great Appeal of the Political Message of the Book
But there is a good deal of weighty matter in Animal Farm to appeal to the adult or
mature minds. At one level, this book is certainly a children's story; but at another

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level it is a book with a serious political import, meant for advanced readers. Animal
Farm is an allegory in which the various kinds of animals symbolize various classes
of human society, in which certain particular animals represent certain historical
personalities, and in which certain happenings symbolize certain historical events.
Orwell wrote this book primarily, not as a children's story, but as a vehicle for the
expression of his political views and convictions in a disguised form. The rise of
totalitarianism in various countries (Italy, Germany, Russia) had greatly disturbed
Orwell's mind during the nineteen-thirties and forties. He was a man of firm
socialistic ideas. It had distressed him particularly to see what was happening in
Russia. He felt strongly that Stalin had betrayed the ideals of the Russian
Revolution of October, 1917 and that, under Stalin's regime, the original
revolutionary ideals of equality, comradeship, and economic justice had completely
been shelved and that a system of government had been established which could be
described as "oligarchical collectivism". In order to expose Stalin's betrayal of the
Russian Revolution and also in order to expose the various stages of any revolution,
Orwell wrote Animal Farm. Every revolution, according to him eventually leads to
the re-establishment of a dictatorial regime. His exposure of the betrayal of the
Russian Revolution and of every other revolution took the form of an allegorical
satire. We here find the animals driving away their tyrannical master Mr. Jones
from the farm and establishing a free and democratic system of government of
their own. But in course of time one particular class of animals, namely the pigs,
acquires a position of importance and begins to enjoy certain privileges which are
denied to the other animals. One of the pigs by the name of Napoleon manages,
partly by deceit and partly by force, to become the dictator of the farm. The pigs
now direct and supervise the work which is entirely done by the other animals;
while Napoleon goes on, step by step, to discard the principles which had inspired
the animals to rebel against Mr. Jones. Ultimately we find the pigs living almost like
human beings and developing all the habits and vices of human beings, while the
leader, Napoleon, emerges as the undisputed and unchallenged dictator who
administers the farm in complete disregard of the ideals of equality, comradeship,
and social and economic justice. This, according to Orwell, is the ultimate fate of
most revolutions. Now the political ideas and the political message implicit in this
animal story had a tremendous appeal for the readers when the book first
appeared, because the world had actually witnesses the injustices, the
persecutions, and the cruelties which had been practised by the various dictators

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to keep themselves in power. It is true that many people including the intellectuals
had at that time begun to admire Stalin for the heroic manner in which the Russian
armies had fought against the invading German forces, but Orwell found it
impossible to glorify Stalin. Stalin's successful conduct of the war against the
Germans was no doubt worthy of admiration, but Orwell could not ignore the
methods which Stalin had originally employed to consolidate his power. Orwell could
not shut his eyes to the Great Purge Trials held by Stalin during 1936-38. Even
today the allegorical significance of Animal Farm has a great value for us. The
essentials of the Communist regime in Russia today are the same as they were
during the time of Stalin. The same barbarities have not, of course, been repeated
; but Russia still continues to be a country in which the basic freedoms are denied
to human beings, in which there are all kinds of restrictions and restrains upon the
citizens, in which the bureaucracy and the leadership enjoy certain privileges which
are denied to the common people, in which there is no free access to news and
information, in which secrecy shrouds many of the policies and actions of the
government, and in which the citizens are almost the slaves of the State. For those
who love freedom, Animal Farm has still a great interest and appeal.
The Appeal of the Characterization in this Book
The popularity of this book is also due to the success of its characterization. The
characters who really matter and who chiefly engage our attention are the animals
among whom Napoleon, Snowball, Squealer, Boxer, and Benjamin are the most
prominent. Now, each of these characters has been individualized so that we can
easily distinguish one from the other. Between Napoleon and Snowball there is a
striking contrast, as there actually was between Stalin and Trotsky whom the two
pigs respectively symbolize. Napoleon has a certain depth of character, which is
lacking in Snowball. Snowball has a more lively mind than Napoleon has. Snowball
works openly and speaks candidly; while Napoleon is secretive and works behind the
scenes. Napoleon adopts devious methods to consolidate his power, and does not
shrink from the use of brutal force in order to have his way. It is because of his
utter unscrupulousness and ruthlessness that Napoleon succeeds in driving away
Snowball from the farm, just as Stalin had succeeded in driving away Trotsky into
exile. Squealer is the cunning and ingenious propagandist who defends and justifies
all Napoleon's policies and actions. Boxer symbolizes the toiling and suffering
proletariat. The portrayal of Boxer cannot fail to move the hearts of both children
and adults to a deep pity. Benjamin the donkey symbolizes the cynical philosopher

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who believes that things can never improve and that, no matter what changes take
place, life on the earth will go on as it has always done, that is, badly. All these
characters have been made actually to live before our eyes. The characterization
is most vivid. Even the minor characters such as Mollie, the vain white mare, and
Muriel the white goat who can read as well as the dogs are as real as the actual
persons whom we meet in the course of our lives. All these animals have been made
perfectly convincing, and that is no small achievement.
An Interesting Plot with Dramatic Situations
Animal Farm has a very interesting plot, and that is another reason for the
popularity of the book. An interesting plot is the first demand which every reader
makes upon a novel. In Animal Farm we move from chapter to chapter, waiting
expectantly for what will happen next. Our curiosity and suspense are aroused at
every step. There are a number of dramatic situations which hold our attention and
stir further curiosity. There is for instance, the united assault by the animals upon
Mr. Jones and his men, leading to the expulsion of Mr. Jones from the farm. We
now wonder what will happen next. Then there is the Battle of the Cowshed which
the animals win against Mr. Jones and his men chiefly because of the superior
strategy employed by Snowball who is on this occasion the commander of the
forces fighting to repel the attack by Mr. Jones. One of the most exciting and
shocking incidents is the expulsion of Snowball from the farm by Napoleon's fierce
dogs. Later in the story, the Battle of the Windmill is fought. On this occasion, the
animals no doubt suffer a big loss because the windmill has been blown up with
explosives by Mr. Frederick's men, but the animals do succeed in driving away Mr.
Frederick and his men from the farm and are thus able to retain their
independence. These, and some other, situations in the story are very exciting.
The Appeal of the Pathetic Situations in the Story
A few situations in the book are deeply moving. A pathetic situation always adds to
the interest of a story because sympathy and pity are among the most common
feelings of mankind. The massacre of the innocent animals under the orders of
Napoleon on charges of treason is a deeply tragic situation. The animals who are
put to death on this occasion are first made to confess the crimes for which they
receive this punishment but which they have not actually committed. At the end of
this scene, there is a pile of corpses lying at Napoleon's feet, and the air is thick
with the smell of blood. This massacre is intended to bring to our minds the tragic

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fate of all those Russians who were hauled up for trial before the Russian courts
to answer the charges of treason against them, who were forced to confess the
crimes which they had never committed, and who were then executed under the
orders of the courts which, of course, acted under the direct command of Stalin.
Even more moving is the sad fate which Boxer meets. Boxer has been a very hard-
working animal whose role in the fighting and whose contribution to the
construction of the windmill are most conspicuous. Boxer has, in addition, been very
loyal and devoted to Napoleon. In fact, his two mottoes ("I will work harder" and
"Napoleon is always right") show how industrious and how attached to Napoleon he
has always been. But, when he has grown old and falls ill on account of sheer
exhaustion, he is sold to a knacker to be slaughtered instead of being treated for
his ailment. Nothing shows the callousness and inhumanity of the Russian
Communist leaders more clearly than the manner in which Boxer is treated by
Napoleon and Squealer. Poor Boxer! The fate of Boxer is perhaps the most
poignant situation in the whole novel.
An Abundance of Wit, Humour, and Gaiety
But if there is plenty of pathos to add to the interest of Animal Farm, there is an
abundance of humour and wit in it also, further to add to the book's interest and
popularity. Animal Farm has undoubtedly its sombre and tragic side; but it is a book
abounding in gaiety and sheer fun. The funny situations in the book make us laugh
heartily. There is, for instance, the whole behaviour of Mollie to amuse us. Mollie is
not interested in work at all. She stands on the bank of a pool, admiring her
reflection in the water. She is a vain mare, fond of wearing ribbons in her mane.
When fighting breaks out, she runs to her stall and buries her face in the hay,
while the other animals are risking their lives for the honour of the farm. Squealer
greatly amuses us when he skips from side to side, whisking his tail and speaking in
a persuasive manner in order to convince his listeners about the rightness of
Napoleon's decisions and policies. The pigs walking on their hind legs would be a
most amusing spectacle, too. We would hardly be able to restrain our laughter when
we see Napoleon walking on his hind legs, with a hat on his head and a pipe in his
mouth. The manner in which Moses talks about Sugarcandy Mountain is another
comic element in the story. The final episode when Mr. Pilkington and Napoleon
make speeches and propose toasts to the prosperity of Animal Farm, and when the
two leaders play an ace of spades simultaneously, is perhaps the climax of comedy
in this book.

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The Enticing Beauties of the Farm
Yet another reason for the popularity of this book is Orwell's loving and convincing
descriptions of the farm. Orwell has described the changing seasons of sowing,
reaping, and storing for the winter, the arduous toil in the fields; and he has
described the orchard, the cowshed, the barn, the farmhouse, etc. in a most
realistic manner. Animal Farm becomes a real farm which we feel we are actually
visiting. In describing the workings of this farm, Orwell throughout plays fair. To
run the farm, Napoleon needs to buy oil, nails, strings, and iron for the horses'
shoes. But while acknowledging necessities, Orwell always returns to the enticing
beauties of the farm. There is a scene near the end of the book, when some of the
animals including Clover, are described as looking at the distant view of the farm:
The long pasture stretching down to the main road, the hay field, the spinney, the
drinking pool, the ploughed fields where the young wheat was thick and green,……...
It is a lovely piece of description.
The Simplicity and Economy of the Style
Animal Farm owes its popularity and its high reputation also to the style in which it
is written. Orwell's style in this book is characterized by an absolute simplicity and
a striking economy. It is a style of utter and perfect simplicity. Good prose, said
Orwell, is like a window pane; and the style of Animal Farm fulfils this condition. It
is a style marked by a perfect clarity and transparency. In this style, the meaning
is allowed to choose the word. In addition to simplicity, there is the quality of
brevity in this style. Brevity, as we know, is the soul of wit. Here much is conveyed
through little. A wealth of meaning lies hidden in this slim volume, though the
meaning is easily discoverable. The style is concise and terse, besides being simple
and straightforward. There is not the least obscurity or vagueness anywhere. This
book has also contributed a famous maxim to the English language, a maxim which
is now often quoted to show that the concept of equality in human society, as in the
animal community, is a myth devoid of all meaning. That maxim is: "All Animals Are
Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal." Furthermore, Animal Farm has a compact
structure. It has a well-knit story with a tight structure, free from all surplusage
and superfluity.

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Write a comprehensive note on Orwell's portrayal of

characters in Animal Farm.
The Animals in This Novel, Real and Convincing
Orwell was neither a great creator, nor a great delineator, of human character. In
fact, his principal weakness as a novelist lies in the sphere of characterization. The
persons in his novels have not been satisfactorily or successfully been drawn.
The reason for this failure is Orwell's incapacity to take us into the minds of his
characters. He is unable to depict the inner life and the inner consciousness of the
characters. As a result, his character-portrayals are superficial and therefore not
quite convincing. However, the case of Animal Farm is different. The major
characters in this novel are animals, and the author is under no necessity to
portray their inner life because the animals are not believed to have any inner life
(even though most of the actions of Napoleon are pre-meditated, thereby showing
that some thinking has gone into the decisions he takes). Neither Aesop nor La
Fontaine tried to depict the psychology or the working of the minds of animals.
Orwell's love of animals is well-known. He had kept a number of animals during the
period of his residence in the town of Wellington and had observed their
behaviour. That is one reason why he has been able successfully to portray the
animals in this novel and to make them real and convincing.
A Brief Picture of the Physical Appearance of Each Character
Orwell's technique in his delineation of the animals consists in giving us a brief

visual picture of the physical appearance of each and then letting us infer their
moral traits from their actions and speeches, though occasionally he brings a moral
trait to our notice through his own words. He also makes use of the device of
contrast to emphasize the moral traits of some of the animals. The physical
appearance of the animals is indicated to us very briefly. For instance, Old Major is
described as a prize boar, twelve years old, rather stout, but a majestic-looking
animal with a wise and benevolent appearance. Napoleon is described as a large,
rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar who is not much of a talker but who has a
reputation for getting things done in accordance with his own wishes. Snowball is a
more spirited and lively pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive.

155
Squealer, whose physical appearance receives more attention from the author, is "a
small fat pig, with very round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements, and a shrill
voice." He is a brilliant talker and when he is arguing some difficult point he skips
from side to side, whisking his tail. Boxer is described as an enormous beast, nearly
eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together. A
white stripe down his nose gives him a somewhat stupid appearance. Clover is a
stout motherly mare approaching middle life, who has never quite got her figure
back after the birth of her fourth foal. Mollie is a foolish, pretty white mare who
walks with mincing steps and who is fond of wearing red ribbons in her white mane.
Thus, by means of a visual picture of each of the animals, the animals have been
individualized and differentiated from one another.
Moral Traits, Indicated Through Authorial Comments
As already pointed, Orwell occasionally specifies the moral traits of the characters
through his own comments. Napoleon, as already mentioned, has a reputation
forgetting things done according to his own wishes. Later in the story, we are told
that Napoleon is better at canvassing support for himself behind the scenes, while
Snowball is able to win over the majority of the animals to his side by his brilliant
speeches. Napoleon, we are also told, is especially successful with the sheep.
Boxer, we are told, is universally respected for his steadiness of character and
tremendous powers of work. Benjamin the donkey, says the author, is the worst-
tempered animal on the farm. Benjamin seldom talks and, when he does, it is usually
to make some cynical remark: for instance, he would say that God has given him a
tail to keep the flies off, but that he would prefer to have no tail and no flies.
Alone among the animals on the farm, Benjamin never laughs. If asked why, he
would reply that he sees nothing to laugh at. Squealer, says the author, has a
persuasive manner of talking and can turn black into white, meaning that he can
represent a falsehood as if it were an undoubted truth. Mollie, we are told, does
not get up early to attend to her work. She makes all sorts of excuses for coming
to the work late. There is a cat whose behaviour is described as somewhat peculiar.
Whenever there is any work to be done, she can never be found. She disappears
for hours at a stretch, and then reappears at meal-times or in the evening after
work is over. But she has a way of purring so affectionately that nobody can
criticize her. Benjamin does not shirk work, but he never volunteers to do extra
work either. These specific traits of the various animals, indicated by the author,
further help us to distinguish them from one another; and these traits also make

156
the portrayals much more interesting. We are certainly much amused by the way in
which the skipping of Squealer and his whisking his tail is described, and also by
the manner in which the behaviour of Benjamin, Mollie, and the cat is described by
the author. The description of their physical appearance, combined with these
specific traits, really imparts a vividness to the portrayals of the various animals
and helps the author in making them convincing figures.
Moral Traits, Inferable From Behaviour and Talk: The Case of Major
By and large, the moral traits of the animals are allowed to emerge from the way in
which they behave or talk. Major, whom we meet in the very opening chapter, and
who summons all the animals to a secret meeting, is the animal who instigates his
fellow-animals to rebel against Mr. Jones, the tyrannical owner of the farm. It is
he who provides the motivating force behind the rebellion which he suggests. His
exhortation to the animals to become united in order to struggle to overthrow Mr.
Jones shows that he is a true well-wisher of the animals and also that he has a
fertile mind. He gives to the animals some guidelines for their day-to-day
behaviour, and he sings to them the song called "Beasts of England" which
immediately becomes popular. Major symbolizes, of course. Karl Marx, the German
economist who was the founder of the Communist ideology. Major occupies a
distinctive position in the novel; the speech which he makes to the animals stamps
him as a venerable father-figure. He wins our esteem by his passionate love of
freedom and equality and by his capacity to inspire the other animals with his
progressive ideas. He is able to convince the animals that man is their enemy
against whom they must fight. Man symbolizes, of course, capitalism and the
tyranny which the capitalists are in a position to exercise over the working-class.
The Portrayal of Napoleon
Leaving aside Major, the most important character in the book is Napoleon.
Napoleon's first action, after Mr. Jones has been driven away from the farm, is to
reserve milk and apples for the exclusive use of the pigs. By this action, with which
Snowball too concurs. Napoleon shows that he has already made up his mind that
the pigs are to acquire a privileged position on the farm. Napoleon's second
important action is to take charge of the newly-born puppies of Jessie and Bluebell
in order to rear and train them in accordance with his own secret design. In course
of time, these puppies grow into fierce dogs who serve Napoleon with great
devotion and through whom he is not only able to expel his rival Snowball from the

157
farm, but through whom he also acquires a tremendous power to rule the farm in an
autocratic manner. Napoleon shows his capacity for intrigue by training the sheep
to bleat the slogan "Four legs good, two legs bad" loudly whenever he wants
Snowball's speeches to be interrupted so that Snowball should not be able to sway
his audience. After the success of the rebellion against Mr. Jones, it becomes
Napoleon's constant endeavour to strengthen and consolidate his own position. He
is now dominated by a love of power and a desire for self-aggrandizement. He
confers more and more privileges upon the pigs, and he goes on becoming more and
more of an autocratic ruler. He shows a good deal of cunning and cleverness in
deviating from, and violating, the Seven Commandments till they are reduced to
only one which reads as follows: "All Animals Are Equal But Some Are More Equal."
The absurdity of this Commandment as compared to the original wording is obvious.
Napoleon has bidden a final good-bye to the ideals with which the rebellion against
Mr. Jones had been launched. Napoleon's cunning is seen also in the manner in
which he makes use of Squealer to defend and justify his policies and actions.
Napoleon symbolizes Stalin who, by his arbitrary and ruthless policies and actions
had crushed all opposition in Russia and had emerged as a dictator with absolute
powers. The massacre of animals which takes place on the farm under, Napoleon's
orders corresponds to the Great Purges of 1936-38 which had been carried out
under Stalin's orders. Napoleon is really made to live in the pages of the novel and
is a truly convincing figure.
A Contrast Between Snowball and Napoleon
Snowball offers a striking contrast to Napoleon. While Napoleon is secretive,

Snowball is frank and open-hearted. While Napoleon is prone to be reticent,
Snowball is an eloquent orator. While Napoleon insists on the importance of
agricultural production. Snowball wishes to pay greater attention to the
development of scientific technology as represented by his plan to build a windmill
on the farm to generate electricity. While Napoleon wants that the animals should
keep themselves in a state of armed readiness to defend the farm against a
possible attack, Snowball believes that pigeons should be sent to other farms to
excite the animals on those farms to rise in revolt against their human masters,
thus making it impossible for those human masters to attack Animal Farm. This
contrast between the two leaders is based on historical facts. Napoleon, as already
pointed out, represents Stalin. Snowball, on the other hand, represents Trotsky
who came into conflict with Stalin and who was driven away by Stalin into exile.

158
Stalin and Trotsky were men of opposite views, and so are Napoleon and Snowball in
the story. After Snowball has been driven away from the farm, Napoleon, making
use of Squealer, starts a campaign of slander and vilification against Snowball.
Whenever any misfortune or hardship or a piece of bad luck is experienced by the
animals on Animal Farm, Squealer, acting under Napoleon orders, gives out that
Snowball is responsible for it. Every disaster on the farm is attributed by
Napoleon to the machinations of Snowball who, however, is nowhere in the picture
at all. Stalin, likewise, had slandered and defamed Trotsky for years after Trotsky
had gone into exile. The contrast between Napoleon and Snowball helps to lend a
greater vividness to the delineation of both.
A Convincing Portrayal of Squealer, the Propagandist
Squealer too has skilfully been drawn. He is an able propagandist, who can twist and
distort facts to suit Napoleon's purposes. He is an accomplished liar. His
distortions of the truth are disgusting, chough very amusing at the same time. He
defends Napoleon's decision about the milk and the apples on the ground that the
pigs, being brain-workers, need milk and apples to keep them in a state of good
health. He defends Napoleon's decision not to hold any more meetings of the
animals for the purpose of taking collective decisions. This defence is based on the
ground that Napoleon has only added to his labour by taking this step because
Napoleon thinks that, if all the decisions about running the farm continue to be
taken by a majority vote, the decisions might prove to be wrong and harmful. When
Napoleon decides to build the windmill which he had originally opposed, Squealer
explains to the other animals that Napoleon's original opposition had really been a
device to get rid of Snowball who was a dangerous character and a bad influence.
Squealer describes Napoleon's original opposition to the windmill as "tactics"; and
Squealer repeats the word "tactics" several times, skipping from side to side and
whisking his tail with a merry laugh. Indeed, Squealer tells all kinds of lies in a
most brazen manner to support Napoleon. Squealer is meant to symbolize the
servile Russian Press which always supports and justifies the policies of the
Communist regime.
The Memorable Portrayal of Boxer
Among the minor animals, Boxer is perhaps the most memorable. It is amusing to
find that he cannot go beyond the first four letters in his efforts to learn the
alphabet. But, apart from this deficiency, he is an animal of a sterling character.

159
His habit of working hard and his loyalty to Napoleon are remarkable. His two
mottoes are "I will work harder" and "Napoleon is always right". However, Boxer
meets a sad fate when, on falling ill and becoming incapacitated for work, he is sold
by the ruthless and ungrateful Napoleon to a horse-slaughterer.
Clover and Mollie
Some of the other animals have also been drawn with a sure touch and are made
really to live before us. Clover is as faithful a follower of Napoleon as Boxer is.
However, she is able to learn a little more of the alphabet than Boxer, though she
is still not able to read the Seven Commandments unaided. She is as hard-working
as Boxer, though she is much less strong. By her habits of hard work she
resembles Boxer but she differs widely from Mollie, the white mare, who is a
shirker. Another point of contrast between Clover and Mollie is that, while Clover
remains faithful to the farm, Mollie defects from the farm and goes over to the
human beings to serve them. Clover is as sentimental as Boxer is. She is deeply
attached to Boxer, and she feels grief-stricken when Boxer falls down to the
ground in the course of the performance of his duties and lies helplessly, with
blood trickling from his mouth. Clover's reactions to Napoleon's violations of the
Commandments show that she is a sensitive creature who is much distressed by the
sad developments going on around her.
The Portrayal of Benjamin the Donkey
Benjamin the donkey has also been memorably drawn. His philosophy of life is that
things never really change. He is inclined to be reserved, and seldom opens his
heart. When asked by fellow-animals whether he is happier after the expulsion of
Mr. Jones, he gives a cryptic reply which is "Donkeys live a long life. None of you
has ever seen a dead donkey." At the end of the story we are told that old
Benjamin is much the same as ever, except that he has become a little more gloomy
and reticent after the death of Boxer to whom he had deeply been attached. He is
still of the opinion that things can never become much better, or much worse than
they have been before. In his opinion, hunger, hardship, and disappointment are the
unalterable law of life. Benjamin symbolizes the stoical and cynical philosopher who
does not believe that any real improvement or progress in human affairs is
possible. However, it is somewhat surprising that Orwell should have attributed so
much wisdom to an animal who has traditionally been regarded as stupid.

160
The Portrayal of Moses, the Raven
Moses, the raven, is described as a spy and a tale-bearer and also as a clever
talker. He continually talks about a country called Sugarcandy Mountain which, he
says, is situated somewhere up in the sky. Sugarcandy Mountain is depicted by
Moses as a kind of paradise to which all the animals would go after their deaths.
Some of the animals believe him, but the pigs are openly contemptuous of him
because they regard his talk about Sugarcandy Mountain as a pure fabrication.
However, even the pigs tolerate his presence on the farm. Allegorically Moses
represents first the orthodox Russian Church and subsequently the Roman Catholic
Church. He is relevant to the story because he symbolizes a priest through whom
Stalin had tried to mend his relations with the Pope at Rome.
The White Goat, Muriel
Finally, there is a white goat by the name of Muriel who is quite an intelligent and
clever animal and who learns to read even better than the dogs who are next only
to the pigs in their capacity to read. Muriel is very friendly with Clover to whom
she sometimes reads out the Seven Commandments which Clover herself cannot
read.
The Portrayal of Human Beings
Besides the animal, there are a few human beings who also figure in the story.
They are Mr. Jones, Mr. Pilkington, Mr. Frederick, and Mr. Whymper. They are all
dawn briefly but convincingly. Mr. Jones represents capitalism and Czarism. Mr.
Pilkington most probably symbolizes Churchill, so that his farm represents Britain
and the capitalist economy of the time. Mr. Frederick symbolizes Hitler, so that
Pinchfield Farm would then represent Germany with her plans to annex other
Europeon countries. Mr. Whymper is a solicitor who acts as an intermediary
between Animal Farm and the other farms, and who makes enough money as
commission from the commercial transactions which he negotiates between the two
parties.

161
Write a note on the elements of wit and humour in Animal

Farm.
Humour Due to Incongruity
Incongruity is one of the principal sources of humour. In Animal Farm there is an

abundance of humour, most of it resulting from incongruous situations. This
incongruity is chiefly due to the fact that we here find animals thinking, talking,
behaving, and communicating with one another just like human beings.
Incongruity here is due to the wide gulf between the reality as we know it and the
author's fancy in attributing to the animals a capacity to speak, communicate with
one another, and do the work of supervising and organizing the farm as any group
of human beings would do. In other words, incongruity here is due to the contrast
between the facts as they are presented to us by the author and the facts as we
know them. This incongruity, forming the basis of the entire story, is the cause of
much of our mirth and amusement as we go through the book.
Humour and Wit in the Opening Chapter
In the very opening chapter we are face to face with an incongruous situation when
an old boar named Major calls a secret meeting of all the animals on the farm and
addresses, them. Although the speech of this boar, namely Major, contains much
serious and weighty matter, we are greatly amused to find that the animals have
assembled in order to listen to the boar whom they regard as an old and venerable
member of their community. The very manner in which the author describes the
arrival of some of the animals at this meeting is amusing and shows the author's
wit. For instance, a brood of ducklings, who have lost their mother, come into the
bare, cheeping feebly and wandering from side to side to find some place where
they would not be trodden on. Then there is the cat which, on entering the barn,
looks around for the warmest place, and finally squeezes herself in-between the
two cart-horses named Boxer and Clover. There the cat purrs contentedly
throughout Major's speech without listening to a word of what he says. The
author's portrayal of the character of Benjamin, the donkey, is also quite amusing.
Benjamin, the oldest animal on the farm, seldom talks, and never laughs because,
according to him, there is nothing to laugh at. Major's speech instigating the

162
animals to revolt against their master Mr. Jones is a serious affair, but the fact
that the speaker is an animal addressing a group of animals continues to amuse us
by its incongruity. Major appears here as a political theorist like Karl Marx. The
chapter ends humorously when, on Mr. Jones's firing his gun into the darkness in
order to drive away a supposed fox, all the animals disperse hurriedly and settle
down in their respective places for the night.
Wit and Humour in the Account of the Battles
The account of the animals' rebellion against Mr. Jones and the expulsion of Mr.
Jones is again humorous. Here, again, there is incongruity in the fact that the
animals unitedly attack the men and drive them away from the farm. We have
never heard of a situation of that kind, and therefore we are considerably amused
by the spectacle of a large number of animals of various kinds attacking their
master. Similarly, the Battle of the Cowshed is also a piece of humorous
description. On this occasion, we are told, Snowball the pig acts as the commander
of the forces of Animal Farm. The author gives evidence of his wit when he tells us
that Snowball had for some time past been studying a book containing an account
of Julius Caesar's campaigns and had thus become quite a strategist. When the
human beings advance towards the farm buildings, Snowball launches his first
attack. Then the animals retreat somewhat, and Snowball launches his second line
of attack. This time the animals are pushed back and have to flee in disorder. But
this development is exactly what Snowball had intended, because a number of
horses, cows, and pigs have been lying in ambush in the cowshed and because now
they all suddenly emerge from the cowshed and launch an offensive against the
men. In this way the animals drive away the invading human beings, and win a
victory over them.
The Comic Behaviour of Mollie, the White Mare
The behaviour of Mollie, the white mare, is another source of humour. Mollie is
very fond of wearing red ribbons in her white inane and chewing a lump of sugar.
She avoids doing any work and makes all kinds of excuses for her coming late to
work and leaving the place of work much earlier than the others do. She is in the
habit of standing on the bank of a pool of water and admiring her own reflection in
it. Indeed, Mollie is a kind of coquette, just like any pretty girl. Mollie's cowardice
is also an amusing fact. When the Battle of the Cowshed is being fought, Mollie

163
flees from the scene of battle and hides herself in her stall, with her head buried
in the hay.
Military Honours, Conferred on Some of the Animals
When the animals have won a victory in the Battle of the Cowshed, they institute
medals to be awarded to those who have distinguished themselves in the fighting.
A medal called "Animal Hero, First Class" is awarded to Snowball and to Boxer. A
medal called "Animal Hero, Second Class" is conferred posthumously on a sheep
who had died in the course of the fighting. The gun which had been left behind by
Mr. Jones is now set up at the foot of the flagstaff, like a piece of artillery; and it
is decided to fire this gun twice a year—once on Midsummer Day, the anniversary
of the Rebellion: and again on the 12th October, the anniversary of the Battle of
the Cowshed. All this is very amusing. The absurdity of the animals instituting
medals and ceremonials makes the situation very funny.
Humour in the Animals' Efforts to Learn to Read
The account of the efforts of the animals to learn to read is again very amusing.
The pigs have learnt to read very well, and the dogs have done well too in this
sphere. Muriel, the goat, can read somewhat better than even the dogs and
sometimes reads to the other animals from scraps of a newspaper which she found
on the rubbish heap. Clover learns the whole alphabet, but cannot put words
together. Boxer cannot get beyond the letter D. Mollie refuses to learn more than
the six letters which spell her own name. None of the other animals on the farm
can get further than the letter A. The result is that the more stupid animals, such
as the sheep, hens, and ducks are unable to learn the Seven Commandments by
heart. For the benefit of such animals, Snowball reduces the Seven Commandments
to a single maxim which is : "Four legs good, two legs bad." This, according to
Snowball, contains the essential principle of Animalism. All this is very amusing.
Humour Arising From Snowball's Sophistry
But even more amusing is the sophistry employed by Snowball when birds object to
the maxim announced by him because they feel that they would be excluded from
the community of the animals on the basis of their being two-legged creatures.
Snowball satisfies the birds with the argument that a bird's wing should be
regarded as a leg because a wing is an organ of propulsion and not of manipulation.
In other words, the two wings of a bird have also to be counted as legs, and in this

164
way a bird would qualify for the status of an animal. Another amusing development
is that the sheep develop a great liking for the new maxim and, having learnt it by
heart, often bleat it for hours on end. Subsequently, Napoleon makes use of the
sheep to interrupt Snowball's speeches with their loud and continuous bleating of
this maxim. Napoleon's urinating over the plans of the windmill which Snowball has
drawn with a piece of chalk on the wooden floor of a shed is also an amusing
situation. Napoleon is scornful of every suggestion which comes from Snowball, and
so he gives a visible proof of his contempt for Snowball's project of the windmill.
Humour Arising From Sweater's Sophisms
Much of the humour in the novel results from Orwell's portrayal of the character
of Squealer and from the account of the manner in which Squealer defends and
justifies Napoleon's policies and actions. Squealer is, indeed, the most comic
character in the story. Squealer is described as a brilliant talker who, while arguing
a point, skips from side to side, whisking his tail. He has a reputation for being able
to turn black into white; and we really find him turning black into white on various
occasions in the course of the story. When Napoleon decides that the milk and
apples produced on the farm would be reserved exclusively for the pigs, Squealer
defends this decision by telling the other animals that the pigs are brain-workers
who need milk and apples to maintain their health because these two items of food
contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. The whole
management and organization of the farm depend on the pigs, says Squealer. If the
pigs fail in their duty. Mr. Jones would come back. Thus Squealer has invented an
ingenious reason for Napoleon's decision to reserve milk and apples exclusively for
the pigs. Napoleon's decision is meant, of course, as a satire on a dictator's
bringing into existence a privileged class of persons with whose help and support he
can govern the country in an autocratic manner. The manner in which Squealer
defends Napoleon's decision is a satire on the way in which the servile Press in a
totalitarian country supports and defends all the decisions of a dictator. When
Napoleon orders the construction of a windmill to which he had originally been
opposed, Squealer tells the animals that Napoleon had originally opposed the idea
of the windmill only in order to drive away Snowball who was a dangerous character
and a bad influence. Napoleon's opposition to the idea of the windmill, says
Squealer, was only a part of Napoleon's "tactics". And Squealer repeats the word
"tactics" a number of times, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail as is
his habit on such occasions. When Napoleon decides that he and all the other pigs

165
would now sleep in the beds in which human beings used to sleep, Squealer defends
this decision, once again showing his ingenuity. A bed, he says, merely means a place
to sleep in; even a pile of straw in a stall, he says, is a bed. The Seven
Commandments had forbidden the use of bed-sheets only and not of beds, he
further says. The pigs, says Squealer, have removed the sheets from the beds and
would sleep only between the blankets. Besides, the pigs, as the brain-workers,
need more comfort than the other animals. When the rations of all the animals
except the pigs have been reduced, Squealer defends this step on the ground that
a strict equality in the matter of rations is not desirable. When Boxer has been
slaughtered in a slaughter-house, Squealer tells a brazen lie to the animals, saying
that Boxer had died in a veterinary hospital and that, while dying, Boxer had said:
"Long live Comrade Napoleon!" and ''Napoleon is always right!". Thus Squealer really
succeeds in turning black into white. All his arguments are sophisms (that is,
misleading and erroneous arguments).
Napoleon's Funny Behaviour and Policies
The idea of pigs sleeping in beds is comic enough. But even more comic is the idea
of the pigs wearing human clothes. Napoleon goes to the extent of wearing a hat on
his head and holding a pipe in his mouth. Not only that. The pigs led by Napoleon
start drinking whisky. Napoleon even decides to grow more barley on the farm and
to set up a brewery to make beer. The account of the steps taken by Napoleon for
self-aggrandizement is also very amusing. Napoleon orders the holding of what he
calls a "Spontaneous Demonstration" to celebrate the struggles and triumphs of
Animal Farm. Napoleon himself leads the procession which is flanked by his fierce
dogs. At the head of the procession walks Napoleon's black cock who serves as
Napoleon's trumpeter. Boxer and Clover carry a green banner bearing the words:
"Long Live Comrade Napoleon!" Afterwards poems written in honour of Napoleon
are recited, and a speech is delivered by Squealer who gives to the animals details
of the increase in the production of food on the farm. By these means, Napoleon
not only adds to his own dignity but also manages to give to the animals a feeling of
their own importance so that they may forget for the time being that they are not
getting adequate rations for their subsistence. All this is amusing because it is a
satire on the way a totalitarian government functions. The Soviet regime under
Stalin always used to resort to such methods in order to keep the people contented
despite shortages of food and other commodities in the country.

166
Napoleon, Cheated By Mr. Frederick
There is a very amusing development when Napoleon finds himself in a piquant

situation. He has sold some timber to Mr. Frederick against hard cash; but it is
soon discovered that the currency notes given by Mr. Frederick are forged.
Napoleon feels greatly embarrassed not only because he has been cheated but
because he has held an exhibition of the currency notes to impress the animals
with his achievement. But it is even more amusing to find that Napoleon, in order to
punish Mr. Frederick for this deception, calls a meeting of all the animals and
pronounces the death-sentence upon Mr. Frederick. When captured, says Napoleon,
Mr. Frederick would be boiled alive. In the event, Mr. Frederick succeeds in
blowing up the windmill on Animal Farm, thus causing a heavy loss to Napoleon.
The Absurdity of Holding Snowball Responsible For Every Misfortune
The manner in which Snowball is slandered and defamed after he has been driven
away from the farm is also very comic. When the windmill is brought down by a
furious storm, Napoleon gives out that the windmill has been destroyed by
Snowball who had crept to the windmill under cover of the darkness and had
destroyed it. Subsequently, every misfortune and every difficulty experienced by
the animals on the farm is attributed by Napoleon to Snowball, even though
Snowball is nowhere in the picture. Napoleon gives out that Snowball steals the
corn from the farm, upsets the milk pails, shatters the eggs, tramples upon the
seed-beds, cuts off the bark from the fruit trees, etc. etc. Whenever anything
goes wrong on the farm, Snowball is held responsible. All this is a satire on the
working of the Soviet regime which always manages to find an alibi for its failures.
The Irony in the Deviations from the Seven Commandments
It is a most amusing spectacle to find the pigs, led by Napoleon and Squealer,
walking on their hind legs and holding whips in their trotters. The manner in which
all the Commandments have been distorted and discarded constitutes a major part
of the comedy. One Commandment forbade drinking alcohol. But it is altered to
read that drinking alcohol to excess was forbidden. Another Commandment
forbade the killing of animals by animals, but this Commandment is altered to read
that the killing of animals by animals without cause was forbidden. The slogan "Four
legs good, two legs bad" is now reversed, so as to read: Four legs good, two legs
better." The Seventh Commandment is now altered to read as follows: "All Animals

167
Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal." Not only that. The pigs now want a
telephone and have begun to subscribe to newspapers and magazines. With human
beings, Napoleon has already established trading relations. The absurdity and
preposterousness of all these developments are highly amusing. There is irony in all
the deviations from the Seven Commandments. The irony lies in the contrast
between what the animals had looked forward to and what Napoleon has actually
done on the farm.
Comic Irony in the Final Episode
We have yet another example of ironic humour in the final episode. Man was
regarded by the animals as their chief enemy. But now Napoleon has established
friendly relations with all the neighbouring human beings. The habits and ways of
human beings have already been adopted in defiance of Major's directive. Not only
that. The name "Manor Farm" is restored. The animals have to work for longer
hours for less rations so that they should not feel that they are being pampered.
The pigs now begin to resemble human beings, so that it is difficult for the animals
to distinguish between the pigs and the human beings. All this is a satire on the
way Stalin went back to the autocratic methods of the Czar who had been
overthrown by the revolutionaries. The Bolshevists had aroused great hopes in the
hearts of the people, but Stalin betrayed all the ideals and principles of the
Russian Revolution of October, 1917.

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1

George Orwell: A Biographical Sketch

His Connection with the East

His Attitude to His Parents

Facebook Page MA English University of Sargodha Pakistan

Miserable and Lonely at St. Cyprian's School

a sense of desolate loneliness and hopelessness, of being locked up not only in a

His Painful Memories of School Life

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His Rejection of the Aristocratic Values at Eton

Selected For the Burmese Police Force

Service as a Police Officer in Burma;

and His Resignation

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Sick in a Paris Hospital

As a non-paying patient, Orwell had to endure the depressing conditions in the

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As a Contributor to "Adelphi", and a Part-Time

Visit to Wigan. Marriage

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Participation in the Spanish Civil War

In Quest of Health in French Morocco

As a Talks Producer for the B.B.C.

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Financial Gain Through "Animal Farm"

In February 1944, Orwell completed Animal Farm, a satire on the Russian

The Tragic Death of Orwell's Wife

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The Publication of "Nineteen Eighty-Four".

Second Marriage. Death

Orwell began writing Nineteen Eighty-Four in August 1946 and finished it in

George Orwell: His Principal Works

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1. Burmese Days (1934): a fictional account of his experiences in Burma where he

2. A Clergyman's Daughter (1935): the story of Dorothy, the spinster daughter of

6. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949): a grim satire on totalitarianism. It is a nightmarish

Essays, Letters, Articles Contributed to Magazines, etc.

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Volume I. An Age Like This: covering the period 1920-1940.

Volume II. My Country Right or Left: covering the period 1940-1943.

Volume III. As I Please: covering the period 1943-1945.

George Orwell, The Essayist

(1) "CHARLES DICKENS"

Art and Propaganda

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preference as "either something inexplicable or it is so corrupted by non-aesthetic

(2) "BOYS' WEEKLIES"

Orwell's Views About Comic Magazines

This essay contains a detailed account of the rhetoric employed by comic

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nature of the audience-response which is required, and the corresponding need to

(3) "INSIDE THE WHALE"

Miller's Attitude of Acceptance, a Sign of Decadence

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An Ambiguity in This Essay

(4) "THE LION AND THE UNICORN"

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The Uniqueness of English Culture, According to Orwell

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A Paradox in Orwell's Thinking

By revolution we become more ourselves, not less. There is no question of stopping

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